


Okay, Did We Just Get Sent To Hell?

by itsallAvengers



Series: Not A Fear [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Realities, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Avengers Family, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, BuT tHe WOrSt KINd oF DREamWOrld, Domestic Avengers, Dreamworld, Everyone is Gonna Need A Hug in This Fucking Fic, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Insomnia, M/M, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Natasha Romanov Is A BAMF, Nightmares, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Panic Attacks, Pining Steve Rogers, Pre-Slash, Protective Avengers, Protective Steve Rogers, Science Bros, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers Is Religious, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers has nightmares, Team Feels, Temporary Major Character Deaths, There is some form of fluff in here somewhere, This is Boutta Get Real Dark, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Worst fears, as always, at the beginning maybe??, i guess, loki is a little shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-08-20 03:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8234281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: Steve is doing great.He's living in a tower, fighting crime with four people he likes immensely and one person he may or may not be totally in love with.not that he's going to tell Tony that. Not after everything he's been put through…it wouldn't be right to put that sort of pressure on him, right? So he's just going to sit and pine quietly- because that's always worked out in every love story ever, hasn't it?so yes, Steve is great. He's got friends, he has stability, and nothing has exploded or died in at least a week. Nothing can go wrong.-Oh, hey Loki.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SO I FINALLY WROTE PART TWO OF MY 'NOT A FEAR' SERIES!!! I've gotta say I don't usually do this, I usually always write out the whole fic and then post it bit by bit, but this time I'm going to post as I go.  
> (Oh god, this is going to be a complete train wreck)
> 
> So, for those of you who haven't read part one of this series, I'm hoping (???) that this can be read as a standalone, but I feel like it would be easier if you went and checked out the first one so you are up to date with the backstory/reasoning behind people's actions. 
> 
> And for those who have read the first one and have been waiting for me, I have to ask you- what do you want from this? Because I'm gonna level with you, the reason this took so long was because I had absolutely 0 inspiration, and i didn't want to force it. What loose ends do i need to tie up? What do you want to see from the characters/ what dialog? I have a very definite plan and a solid foundation, but I would really appreciate your ideas! Just comment below and I will read them and write accordingly! :)

Steve had nightmares an a lot.

He had always been an anxious person. Growing up in a great depression, being a skinny asthmatic and never knowing if you were going to fall fatally ill the next day sort of did that to a person. So the nightmares that came with all that stress and worry? Not exactly a big surprise.  
Steve had been used to waking up slightly panicked, a little out of breath, maybe a slight sheen of sweat around his forehead if it had been particularly bad.

It had never been like this.

It was never thrashing around in bed, breaking mattresses in two and ripping sheets in half. It had never been screaming at the top of his lungs, begging for the life of a friend who was long dead. It never left him unable to breathe properly or unable to sleep for the rest of the night or two, if it had been particularly horrifying.

Becoming Captain America had its downsides. To put it lightly.

 So when Steve woke up at one fifty-six on a Tuesday morning, curled up in a ball on the floor and screaming in terror, it didn’t even surprise him.

 

Breath coming in short, broken gasps, his eyes flew open and he scrambled up into sitting position from his place on the floor. The world around him was pitch black, and he was cold without the thick sheets of his bed to wrap around him.

 

_Cold_

_He could feel the bitter chill sweeping around him in the plane as he drove it into the unforgiving ice, a coldness like nothing else he had ever felt before. Knives on his skin, worming their way under his suit and enveloping him like an inescapable blanket. He felt the shrapnel of the wrecked plane he was sat in rush past him, icy metal hitting his face and throwing him out of his pilot’s chair. On the floor now, he could feel the Arctic waters pool on the floor, spilling through all the chasms in the metalwork of the airplane, hitting him like an explosion of vicious cold._

_The ice chokes him, he can’t move, his body is freezing and he can fucking feel it as it kills him and-_

 

Steve groaned again, taking a sharp intake of breath and clutching at the damp hair on his neck, choking back broken sobs.

It’s just a memory. A memory. It’s not real _itsnotrealitsnotreal_.

There was no way he could sleep now. Not a hope in hell. Shaking hands felt around for a blanket, a sheet, something, anything that would keep the ice away from his bones, away from his heart. They landed on a familiar shabby blanket that was frayed at the edges and so very old, and so very Tony, and Steve clutched at it like a lifeline, pulling it around his shoulders and resting his head against the side of the bed in exhaustion.

He must have forgotten to give it back when Tony had placed it over him a few nights back, as he had fallen unconscious on top of the bed after the usual post-battle exhaustion. Or maybe he had just wanted to keep it for a little longer. That seemed like the more likely option, to be honest.

The faint aroma of coconuts and spilled coffee drifted into Steve’s nose, and he breathed it in, burrowing his face into the worn down sheet and inhaling.

It smelt like home.

Home was calming. Home wasn’t ice or ocean or warzone. Home was his friends, his team. It was Tony’s workshop or Tony’s smile or Tony’s inventions or- _Tony._

(Yeah, okay, maybe Steve could admit he was slightly completely and utterly infatuated.)

Its just…Tony was something Steve had never seen before. It was like looking at fire. So bright it could be blinding, constantly changing or shifting or evolving- and completely mesmerizing.

And Steve wanted him. So badly it hurt. He wanted the pre-coffee drowsiness and the grumpiness that came with his lack of sleep. Early morning kisses and late-night dinners spent together on the worn-out sofa of the workshop.

But that wasn’t possible. Not when Tony was barely recovered from the ordeal Steve had put him through. Tony could barely keep himself from flinching when he was caught unaware by any of the team, and despite his promises that all was forgiven; Steve could tell that the day at the pool had affected Tony deeply.

One stupid joke- that was all it had taken for Steve to ruin everything he could have had.

He should have known. Or maybe asked before fucking deciding it was a good idea to throw a man Steve knew had PTSD into a God-Damn-Fucking-Pool. But he had just been so excited to try and get Tony to join in; he had wanted to see that smile Tony had given Natasha so desperately. The consequences or doubts were pushed to the back of his mind, and never even thought about when he told Clint and Thor to get him into the pool using whatever means necessary.

Idiot, idiot, _idiot._

And now, after the incredible fuck up that was the pool incident, Tony was out of bounds. Steve wasn’t going to put that sort of pressure on him, and it seemed he and Bruce were kind of a thing anyway (and Steve wasn’t bitterly jealous about that at all. Definitely not). Tony and the Doctor had seemed joined at the hip ever since he’d come back, and even if it hurt to see, he was glad that Tony was happy now.

 

 

Steve discovered that it was a very disconcerting thing to be awoken at four a.m. on the dot by a savage green rage monster tearing through the lounge and howling at the top of his lungs for ‘Tin Man Tony’, just a few hours after Tony had got off the phone with him (and he had been in India. The man travelled _fast_ when he was angry).

As soon as the other Avengers had gathered around, trying to subdue the wrathful green angerball, Bruce/Hulk looked as if he were about to tear off their limbs bit by bit until Tony had flown in, hair sleep-mussed and only half-dressed, and subdued the angry man after firm reassurances that he was in fact fine, and it was all a simple misunderstanding.

However even after Hulk had morphed back into Bruce, the scientist was still furious, and didn’t waste any time to begin his yelling.

“How fucking _dare you_! All of you, what the fuck where you fucking _thinking_ , you fucking idiots! Fucking, _fuck_ , you’re all morons! And Tony told me you hated him?! After all he’s done for you?! You ungrateful, fucking-“

The green in Banner’s eyes was returning, and so Tony quickly hurried forward and laid an arm on the man’s heaving shoulders, shooting him a reassuring smile.

“Hey, hey, buddy, look at me. I’m fine. It was all just a big mistake, okay? I should’ve called you back, I’m sorry. But I just got a bit…freaked out, and I was kinda panicked from the whole pool thing and can we please just drop it now-“

“So it’s true? You threw him in a pool?” Bruce asked, turning to the group of sleepy heroes and looking colder than any of them had ever seen him.

Clint looked down in shame, and Thor wrung his hands, nodding slightly. Natasha simply kept her gaze firmly impassive, and opened her mouth to talk- but Steve got in first.

“Yes. It was my idea, so please; don’t take it out on the others. I thought once we managed to get him into the pool he would enjoy himself, but honestly Doctor Banner, we had no idea about what could happen,”

“That’s not true, Steve. I managed to read the file before Stark got in and hacked it all. Both Clint and I knew full well what he could be like if exposed to water. We should have remembered.” Natasha interrupted, shooting Steve a disapproving glare and stepping forward, turning her gaze toward Bruce and looking genuinely upset.

“Yes. You sort of fucking should. And what was all that shit about you guys hating him? Is that true, too?”

“Bruce, please just quit it okay, it’s done, it’s fine, just let it-“

“No, we never hated him! We just…”  
Clint shot an apologetic look over at Tony, who was looking murderous on Bruce’s left,

“We just thought he was like the Tony Stark they talked about in the magazines, you know? We never really got past that.” He finished, looking away toward the floor again.

“I am _right here_ , you know? Jesus, I told you guys to drop it already! What part of that do you not fucking understand? I’m not a fucking _baby_ , and I don’t need looking after!” Tony shouted, throwing his hands into the air and silencing the words that were about to fall out of Steve’s mouth.

They all stopped immediately, looking at him with wide eyes. After glaring at them all for a good four seconds, Tony slumped suddenly, pulling hand across his forehead and biting his lip.

“I’m going to bed. Do not come and visit me for a good forty-eight hours, or I will hurt you. Apart from Natasha- you can come, purely because I am physically incapable of hurting you. You’re probably immortal or something.” He muttered, turning his heel and walking away with a scowl on his face.

Bruce had only looked at them, a face mixed with both sadness and anger. He took off his glasses and rubbed them on the fabric of his shirt to remove the steam that had gathered there, and the rest of the Avengers were left stood at attention, waiting for him to speak as if they were in high school being told off by the headmaster.

Eventually, he turned back to face them, and sighed, before launching into speech.

“Imagine you had grown up around people who only wanted you for what you had. Money, inventions, sex- you name it, people wanted Tony Stark for it. But you know what they never wanted? Him. They never cared for his company or his jokes or his friendship. Imagine growing up surrounded with people, and still being so incredibly alone.  
Tony puts up his PR persona, that façade of a man who has everything and needs nobody. But in reality, he just wants someone to meet him and actually want to stay for _him_. Not for the name, or the brain or the wallet. I saw that after about an hour of talking to him. You live with the man for three months, and refuse to look past the shitty mask? What kind of a message do you think that sent to him? And not only the fact that you didn’t even care about him enough to talk to him properly and get to know him, but he managed to get the idea that you actively disliked him. So that means it wasn’t just dismissal you were showing him, but outright cruelty. God, no wonder he didn’t want to come on your fucking team building trips, he probably thought you were going to jump him on the journey there!” Bruce shouted, his voice starting out quiet but ending in a full out yell.

Steve said nothing, but bit his lip and tried to keep eye contact. Guilt was crawling up his throat like vomit, and his heart felt tighter than it had since Bucky’s death.

Bruce was right. All the snarky comments and passive-aggressive mutterings had just twisted the knife deeper into Tony’s back, and hurt him more and more.

“Doctor Banner, we honestly- it was just a big misunderstanding, I swear on the life of the All-father. None of us ever meant to intentionally hurt him with the whole pool-incident. And for all the other things… well, we have got a lot of making up to do. But we shall do it. I do not care how long it takes, I for one, intend to make it up to him.” Thor promised, staring resolutely into the scientist’s eyes with such powerful emotion that Steve could feel the static pull upward on his hair a little.

Bruce stared at them all, unwavering for a few moments, before huffing and unfolding his arms.

“You better. Or I swear to you, I will rip off all of your genitalia. Don’t think I won’t,” he threatened, giving them a hard look before turning away back to his quarters, picking up his suitcase on the way.

“I think I’ll pass on the Hulk removing my penis, thank you very much.” Clint muttered, shooting the others a tiny smile that was filled with more regret than happiness.

“Oh, Barton, it won’t be the Hulk who’s gonna be removing it.” Banner called from the stairs, turning to shoot them one last (incredibly frightening) smile before sweeping up the stairs and leaving four thoroughly shaken Avengers behind them.

 

 

That was a month ago. Steve would have liked to think they were on better terms now, but he could still see the tiny flash of green in the other man’s eyes when anything related to that topic was brought up.

It hurt Steve just as much as it hurt Bruce, watching him act like that and knowing that he was partially responsible for it. Especially now, when Steve was using the blanket Tony gave to him as a comforter, even though Steve had ignored all Tony’s struggles for the past three months of living with him.

 

But he didn’t want to think about that. He’d had enough of haunting memories for the night; all he wanted now was company.

“JARVIS- is there anyone awake in the tower tonight?” He asked quietly, wrapping the blanket a little tighter around himself when he felt a slight draft wisp over his shoulders.

“I’m afraid it is only you who is currently awake, Captain. However Miss Romanov and Sir both have elevated heart-rates and increased stress-levels, which means you could potentially have company in the near future.” The AI replied softly, his voice a soothing calm over Steve’s wrecked nerves.

He sighed a little, and then slowly got to his feet, using the mattress for support. He still felt weak and cold, despite the blanket draped around him. Sleep was obviously not in the question now- he spared a look at the clock and grimaced. 3:09a.m. Too early for his run.

Yawning, Steve made his way out into the silent corridor and toward the kitchen. Whatever time of day, whatever the occasion, there always seemed to be pizza on hand. And Steve loved pizza.

 

It was about half an hour later when Clint walked in, eyes blown wide and still panting a little. They acknowledged each other silently; both of them all-too-aware of the reason they were meeting in the early hours of the morning. It was inevitable really- Steve wasn’t the only one haunted by his past.

“Infomercials?” Steve asked.

“Infomercials.” Clint replied, shuffling until the pillows on the couch consumed him.

Nodding his head in agreement, Steve flicked the channel to the mindless presenters selling their useless gear, and they sat in companionable silence for a while, letting the words drift over them as it always did.

“d’ya think we’re ever gonna get past it?” Clint asked suddenly, breaking the silence abruptly and turning to face Steve, his face carefully empty. He was testing the waters; seeing how Steve would react before letting his own emotions slip through.

Steve bit his lip and looked down at his hands anxiously. He knew what Clint was talking about; they didn’t need to say it. It was a nagging at the back of all their minds- jumping to the forefront whenever Tony looked mildly surprised if ever they laughed at one of his jokes instead of looking disapproving, or jerked back instinctively if they touched him like he was… afraid.

“I don’t know. He seems fine with us; but- it’s still there. In the back somewhere. Kind of like he just refuses to talk about it and hopes it will go away. But I know he still thinks we meant it, I know he still looks at us and a part of him believes we genuinely don’t want him here. And I just… I don’t know how to change that.” Steve admitted quietly, his head flicking over to the corridor where Tony was sleeping peacefully, (or not, according to JARVIS).

“At least he’s decided he can trust you. It’s sweet, kinda. Watching you giving him sheepish lovey-eyes from across the room, while he smiles idiotically at one of your lame jokes. You two- you’re close. Probably closer than most people have ever been with him before. He just feels uncomfortable whenever I come near him,” Clint said bitterly, his fingers twirling around a loose piece of thread hanging off Tony’s blanket.

“Clint, you know he doesn’t-“

“Steve. I came up from behind to pat him on the shoulder this morning and he dropped his whole bowl of cereal and gripped my hand so tightly I thought it was going to snap in half. He doesn’t trust me enough to even touch him. And the worst part is, it’s completely justified. It’s the same with Thor, maybe even more so, because the guy’s a hell of a lot stronger than him. You should see the look on Thor’s face whenever Tony flinches away from him- you’d have thought his brother had come back to kick him in the balls or something,” Clint says, aiming for light but only ending up sounding unhappy and raw.

They sat in silence for a few seconds, before Steve spoke up again.

“We are going to fix it though. It might take time, and it might take effort. But we’re going to fix it. You’re a stubborn asshole, Barton, and you won’t let him get away with avoiding you forever. You seem like the sort of people who would get on far too well with each other for the public’s good.” He said, smiling tiredly up at Clint as the man laughed and shook his head, fingers tightening briefly against Steve’s shoulders before releasing again.

“Barton ‘n Stark, painting the town red. Whaddy’a think, huh? I’ve heard he’s an amazing poker player- I’m desperate to see him play Natasha sometime, and watch all that ego get crushed between her dainty little fingers.”

“I bet he counts the cards. He’s the sort of person who could memorize a deck without even thinking about it,” Steve declared, and Clint nodded approvingly.

 

“As flattered as I am at your praise for my poker-playing skills, I am also very offended you would ever assume I would cheat in such an underhand way as to count the cards,” came a sleepy voice from behind them, and they both turned around to see Tony wander in, his hair sticking up at all angles and his pants slung low on his waist as he rubbed at an eye with the palm of his hand.

He looked tired- exhausted even- the skin under his eyes purple, his whole body shivering a little at the cold of the night, the raggedy t-shirt slung over his shoulders providing no insulation. His eyes still looked a little haunted, and his hands were shaking, which Steve knew wasn’t caused by the cold of November.

But he smiled, and it was a real, if slightly strained- and he came and threw himself down on the couch to join them, tugging at the blanket covering Steve’s shoulders and pouting like a child.

“Gimme,”

“I had it first, asshole”

“Um, actually, if you would care to look at the tag on the seam of the blanket you have stolen, it will have a fifteen year old Tony Stark’s signature on it, which thereby and forevermore decrees it very much mine. So, in conclusion, _give, me_ ,” Tony said, his voice muffled and raspy as he attempted to pull the blanket from Steve’s tight grip.

Rolling his eyes, Steve released his hold on the blanket and let Tony have it instead, feeling the familiar scent of coffee and metal leave him to be replaced with cool air instead.

But Tony just spread it out to its full surface area, and then gestured for Clint to scoot up closer to both of them so he could throw it over all three of them.

Clint widened his eyes a little in surprise, and Tony faltered, shrugging his shoulders in an attempt at indifference and throwing it over him and Steve instead, but a second later Clint was there, burying himself under the blanket and packing cushions up around him.

“Just so you know, I’m not gonna start watching chick-flicks and crying with you whilst we have deep life conversations. It’s just cold, that’s all.” Tony mumbled, sinking further into the couch and flicking the TV on to the cartoon-show he had a strange obsession with, whilst subconsciously curling into Steve’s body-heat a little more.

“Seconded.” Clint said.

Steve chuckled, letting his head rest against the back of the couch and feeling exhaustion sweep over him.

“Maybe I should get some beer, and we can turn the channel to football just so we can re-affirm our masculinity?” He asked jokingly.

But then Tony and Clint both nodded, pushing him off the couch and on to the floor in order to go fetch them some drinks, and he sighed, making his way to the kitchen in the hunt for beverages.

He came back, not with beer, but hot milk, which both men turned their noses up at but accepted, enthusiastically drinking when they thought no-one was watching.  
The cartoon channel had still not been changed to football scores by the time Steve fell asleep on Tony’s shoulder.

 

 

“Wakey wakey assholes. Tony, you’re in my spot. Remove yourself from it,” Natasha said, flicking them all one by one in between the eyes and waking them all with a start.

Groaning in annoyance and exhaustion, Tony rubbed a hand over his eyes and opened them, squinting up at Natasha, who was still in her fluffy pajama bottoms and one of Steve’s huge blue sweaters. It had seemed over time, she had acquired (stolen) various pieces of clothing from all of the team, and wore them around the house quite blatantly.

No one dared say anything. To be honest, Tony thought it was quite cute, watching her move around the kitchen on a lazy day draped in one of his ratty hoodies, or Clint’s sweatpants.

“I’m pretty sure I have rights to this couch, I did buy it after al- oomph!” Tony cried as the wind got knocked out of his lungs from Natasha gracefully jumping right on to his stomach.

“Fine. But unless you move in the next five seconds, you will have to stay very still for the rest of my program, unless you want me to beat you up. With knives.”

By this point, both Steve and Clint were awake too, groggily sitting up from their group-huddle and glaring at Natasha sleepily.

“She shouldn’t be able to have this sort of power over us,” Clint grumbled as he shuffled over to make room for Natasha’s feet.

“I only do what she wants so that she doesn’t kill me. Despite popular opinion, I do have some sense of self-preservation.” Tony answered, shuffling out from under Natasha’s butt and rolling himself right on to Steve instead, who was just staring at him, half-asleep and with a quite frankly adorably cute look on his face.

“Good morning,” Steve mumbled quietly, letting his eyes drift lazily over Tony’s face and smiling down at him with a kind of contented happiness on his face that made Tony wonder for a second if he was looking at someone else before realizing that of course he wasn’t, Tony was allowed to have friends who actually liked him and he really needed to stop thinking like that.

But Steve must’ve caught the weird half-look tony made around the room to see if he had been looking at anyone else, because suddenly his features twisted into something pained, but it was over as quickly as it begun and Steve was back to smiling at him again, even brighter than before.

Tony felt like an idiot. No surprise there.

Sliding out of Steve’s lap, Tony tumbled down on to the floor and curled up under Natasha’s feet like a cat, shutting his eyes again and trying to ignore the sunlight shining behind his eyes and go back to sleep.

Natasha wiggled her toes, just because she was annoying like that, and Tony shot her an un-amused look, which she returned with the addition of a scary smile, before glancing obviously at Steve and wiggling her eyebrows tellingly.

Tony rolled his eyes and stuck a finger upward, fighting back the blush that threatened to crawl up his cheeks. While his hand was raised, Natasha caught it, grabbing his wrist and tapping out a message in Morse code, making sure the other’s couldn’t see the beats of her fingers.

_'Just ask him out already, asshole.'_

He raised an eyebrow and shook his head, his eyes flicking toward the sleepy blond who was staring at the TV with a vacant expression on his face, still half-asleep.

He gripped her wrist back, tapping out his own message, sitting up and resting his back against Natasha’s legs.

_'Only if you ask Clint.'_

_'That’s different.'_

_'Oh, because it’s okay for you to be afraid of rejection, but not me.'_

_'Yes. That is exactly what it is. And anyway, I don’t know ‘fear’. I am simply making the best tactical decision.'_

_'Ah, yes, I’m sure you are.'_

Natasha flicked him on the back of the head and Tony yelped in annoyance, turning around to try and flick her back. Unsuccessfully, of course, but it was the thought that counted.

 

“You know, it’s rude to have conversations that no one else can understand.” Steve told them as they tapped out various swear words against one another’s skin.

Steve waited as they tapped out a few fast messages to each other; watching as Tony blushed an adorable bright red before tapping something back that made even Natasha’s eyes widen in shock.

He was glad Tony could trust Natasha completely. Her and Bruce were the ones Steve knew that Tony could put 100 percent of his faith in, and as much as it may have hurt that Steve wasn’t one of them, he knew that eventually they would get there too. In time.

And for now, he was just going to have to watch Natasha steal all his time away.  
And that was fine.

“Believe me, Steve, you wouldn’t want to be hearing some of the horrible things this devil-woman is saying.” Tony said, looking at Steve and then shuddering dramatically.

Natasha laughed evilly, leaning on Steve’s shoulder and batting her eyelashes.

“Don’t believe him, Steve, I’m just an innocent ‘dame’, aren’t I?” She asked.

“There are an awful lot of words I would use to describe you, Tash- ‘innocent’ is definitely, definitely not one of them.” Steve replied, poking her head away from his shoulder and standing up, trying to avoid crushing Tony’s head as Natasha moved her legs suddenly and sent Tony toppling to the floor.

“I take it I’m on breakfast duty then.” Steve said, sighing as he looked at his three lazy friends, slumped in various states of disarray all over the living room.

How the hell these people managed to make themselves into superheroes, he had no fucking clue.

“I’ll come help. I need to get some caffeine in me anyway, and I’m not sure I can take any more of this woman’s abuse,” Tony said, as Natasha kicked at the back of his head.

Laughing, Steve grabbed one of Tony’s flailing hands and hauled him up, eliciting a surprised yell as Tony was suddenly pulled into standing effortlessly.

“Fine, but when I say you can help, I mean you can watch as I prepare everything. I’m not letting you touch any of our food, you’ll experiment on it or set the kitchen on fire or something else equally horrifying-“

“Um, excuse me, I’ll have you know I am a fantastic cook, actually. How do you think I got through all my years of MIT- I lived off toast and Chinese food. I know my way around a kitchen, thank you very much.” Tony said haughtily, walking up to the kitchen and then clipping his hip against the corner of one of the countertops and tumbling forward with a string of curses.

“Tell me where the eggs are and I will never doubt your cooking skills again.” Steve said, sliding past Tony to turn on the stove and grab some pans from the cupboard.

Tony was silent for a minute, thinking over his options.

“Top left corner.” He said finally.

“Nope. Good guess though.”

Tony shrugged, jumping up on to the countertop beside where Steve was working and fiddling with the coffee machine next to him.

Steve watched him, as he stuck out his tongue and tapped at the buttons with an expertise that only came with experience in dealing with incredibly complex coffee machines. His hair was a complete mess, tangles and grease and dirt embedded in the strands, and his eyes had sleep in the inner corners. There was a bruise just beginning to fade on his temple from a fight a few days back, and his lips were bitten and chapped from the cold of winter.

Steve couldn’t think of anyone more beautiful than Tony.

“What? Did Clint draw on me in my sleep? Has he shaved my beard? Oh, I’m gonna fucking kill him, how dare he mess with my facial hair-“ Tony said, bringing a hand up to run over his face self-consciously, and Steve realized he’d probably been staring for too long to be considered normal.

“No, no, you’re fine. Nothing’s wrong, you’re just… never mind. It doesn’t matter” Steve mumbled, feeling the heat on his cheeks when Tony shuffled forward and rested his chin on Steve’s shoulder.

“Hey, do you realize how annoying it is when people do that?” Tony complained.

“Do what?”

“The whole, ‘oh, I was going to say something that was probably important and or really juicy gossip but I stop just before any important information is actually released, leaving the other person in the conversation feeling curious and left hanging’ thing. It’s incredibly frustrating. So spill.”

“It doesn’t matter Tony.”

“Then you can tell me.”

“No.”

“Even if I say please?”

“Not even then.”

“Oh my God, you’re so annoying.” Tony mumbled grumpily, pulling his head away from Steve’s shoulder, much to the other man’s disappointment, and leant over the other way to collect his coffee.

Steve was so close to just telling him. God, he could barely contain the amount of feeling he held for the crazy genius sometimes.

But he couldn’t do that. He’d already made Tony miserable once before; he wasn’t going to risk that again. He didn’t want to put any more unnecessary pressure on Tony- he could wait until a better time. Hell, he’d waited for seventy years for someone to thaw him out of the ice, waiting until a better time to ask someone on a date was nothing.

“Just drink your coffee and let me work my magic.” Steve said, thwacking Tony on the forehead with a spatula before leaning across him in order to get the eggs from where they actually were, in the middle right cupboard.

“Sure thing, sweetie,” Tony said, raising his eyebrows and grinning at Steve’s close proximity.

Steve rolled his eyes and tried not to blush completely scarlet; his pale skin didn’t exactly hide his embarrassment well.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, Steve cooking the bacon and egg on the stove as Tony sipped on his coffee and stared off into space, a random rhythm being tapped into his mug.

“Hey, wait until everyone’s at the table,” Steve scolded, smacking Tony’s hand away as it dived for a piece of bacon.

“I’m so hungry though,”

“Did your mother never teach you manners?”

“Yes- hence the reason I am completely ignoring them right now.”

“How mature.”

“You know me, responsible is my middle name.”

Steve laughed, and snatched the plate of food away before tony could get his hands on it, sliding it on to the table and waiting for the smell to drag the rest of his team to the kitchen.

 

“Hello friends! I smell Steve’s cooking, and am very glad I came at such a convenient time!” Thor said, bursting into the room with a slam of doors as he always did, and scaring the life out of both Steve and Tony.

Tony glanced at the few plates of food on the table skeptically. God, there was barely enough food there to feed Clint, never mind an Asgardian warrior.

“Yeah, Thor, you might have to miss out on the breakfast for today, I only cooked enough for the five of- oh, for Christ’s sake, why do I even bother talking? It’s not like anyone actually listens to me, is it?” Steve said, watching helplessly as Thor scooped a whole plate piled high with food up and ambled over to the couch where Natasha and Clint were watching Bridezilla re-runs.

“One day, I’ll stock the fridges with enough food to actually feed us all. Until then, you may have to get used to being ignored.” Tony said, patting Steve on the back and calling the others to go get the rest of the food on the table.

“Tony. Coffee.” Called a sleepy voice from down the corridor, and Steve turned to see Bruce stumbling into the kitchen, still wearing yesterday’s clothes and looking like death warmed up. He’d obviously been working through the night again.

Wordlessly, Tony poured out a cup of coffee into Bruce’s favorite mug and slid it across the counter, where Bruce snatched it up and chugged it down.

It had to have hurt. The coffee was boiling. But it seemed sleep-deprived scientists never seemed to care.

One by one, everyone drifted into the living room, throwing themselves on to couches and beanbags and other people, coffees and plates of food clutched in their hands. Steve and Tony were both squashed into one armchair, the engineer pretty much sat on Steve’s lap, not even a hint of embarrassment about him as he dug into his food. Bruce was lying on the floor at Clint’s feet, not doing much apart from groaning and chugging back another huge gulp of coffee. Thor had his head on Natasha’s lap, where she was brushing through his hair with a comb she procured from absolutely nowhere.

 

It was nice. Normal. Almost as if everyone hadn’t fucked up, as if Tony wasn’t only here because of the horrible circumstances that had somehow managed to pull them closer together than they had been before, rather than apart.

 

Steve sighed, and tried to shake that from is mind. He could enjoy this for what it was. The guilt could wait for a quieter moment- for now; he could simply appreciate the scene.

Turning around to face Tony, he gave a half smile and rolled his eyes when the other man took the opportunity to steal a piece of toast from his plate and move his hand to stuff it in his mouth before it could be retrieved.

Bruce gave a particularly loud groan then, and raised a blind hand up toward Tony, who paused the toast’s journey to his mouth for a second, looking down at his grumpy friend before huffing and slapping the slice of toast down into Bruce’s hand instead, who murmured his approval and pushed it all into his mouth at once.

“Okay one of us is gonna have to arrange an intervention for the scientists of this team concerning the ridiculous and quite frankly scary amounts of sleep they get,” Clint spoke up, nudging the half-dead Bruce with his foot and then pulling it back at the snarl he received in return.

“I disagree, I think we should host an intervention concerning the ridiculous and quite frankly scary amount of knives Natasha has stored around the tower. Or the amount of annoying one archer can contain in one consciousness,” Tony replied, and Bruce held up a closed fist from the floor, which Tony bumped without looking.

Steve was sure he whispered ‘science bros’ under his breath.

“My knife collection is nothing compared to your weird stashes of food you have hidden in the most random corners of the tower. I found a bar of Hershey’s in the floorboards a few days ago.” Natasha said.

“You have food stores? Show me!” Thor said, raising himself from Natasha’s lap as fats as lightning and beginning his search for the possible food immediately, kneeling down beside Bruce and peering under the couch.

“You shall never find them. They are hidden from everyone who is not Natasha. And that wasn’t through choice, she must have decided to pry up a floorboard at some point because I definitely remember sealing it up very clearly.” Tony said, narrowing his eyes at Natasha, who threw a chunk of bread at his forehead in reply.

“You do know we have this thing called fridges and cupboards, right? You know, the place where every other normal person keeps their snacks?” Clint asked him.

“Yes, but when I’ve been working at the lab for eight days straight and I need a snack asap, sometimes the kitchen is too far away. Bruce gets it, right?” Tony asked.

“Tony, no one hides their Hershey’s bar under sealed floorboards. You’re just fucking weird.” Bruce said, his voice muffled by the carpet. A few seconds later, there were gentle snores filling the room.

Tony put a hand to his arc reactor and drew out the path of his imaginary tear with an index finger, burying his head in Steve’s shoulder and raising two fingers as everyone around him nodded their heads in agreement.

 

 

“Oh, well well, it seems you have all resolved your issues, I see. How sweet.” Came a voice from behind them all.

 

 

And that was that. It was like a switch had been flipped. In the space of a second, the group of tired friends went from lazily eating their breakfast whilst watching Bridezilla, to a group of six of the deadliest humans on earth, jumping to their feet instinctively, everyone reaching for a weapon that they had all somehow managed to secrete about their person.

Thor jerked upward, hand snapping out and summoning Mjolnir from it’s perch on the kitchen counter.

Tony slid off the armchair, hands instantly raised into repulsor-firing position, the other tapping a pattern into the band around his wrist and summoning his suit from the workshop. Steve himself had nothing, but he pushed Tony backward and bent his knees, his posture the perfect fighting stance as he raised his fists, swiping a gun from midair that Clint had thrown at him, without taking his eyes off target.

Natasha and Clint were… shocking. If Steve had been thinking of anything else, he would’ve been horrified that the two had brought that much weaponry to breakfast. In their pajamas.

Clint had procured two guns from under his shirt, tossing one of them to Steve along the way. There was a knife gripped in his palm, and he dug a hand into his sweatpants in a lightning fast movement, bringing out a flash grenade (???where the hell had he _put that_???) and raising it threateningly.

Natasha had roughly the same things, except with a disturbingly more abundant amount of knives. Rather than a flash grenade, she had been storing three throwing stars, which had already been thrown, their blades glinting dangerously in the morning light-

-as they hung, frozen in midair.

 

They all stared, looking in between the floating knife-edges and the unwelcome guest, their blood running cold as the realization hit them, fast as a a bullet and powerful as a train.

Clint took a horrified step back, and Natasha moved to cover him so fast you couldn’t even see her. Thor was stood stock still, shock and a daunting sense of foreboding written all over his face, as if he had already given up. Tony hissed out in anger and annoyance, probably too bothered about the fact that he had managed to get into the tower above anything else.

And Steve, being the tactician he was, kicked Bruce in the face. Hard. Because they _really_ , really needed the Hulk right now if any of them were going to survive fighting with fucking _Loki_ at nine o’clock in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh this is really short I'm sorry whoops

“JARVIS, any time now, buddy,” Tony hissed, eyes flickering nervously toward the band on his wrist.

Steve looked down expectantly; hoping to see the inevitable green hue about Bruce’s features any second- and was suitably surprised to see the man still fast asleep, despite the red mark already appearing on Bruce’s cheek.

“None of you tricks will work on me now. You’re surrounded in a timestop- everything that was, will stay as it was, for as long as I need it to be so. So your monster remains asleep, your suit remains uncalled, your blades remain in-flight.” Loki purred, walking forward and being met with another round of bullets, this time from Clint’s gun-

-which were stopped, by none other than Thor’s hammer; Mjolnir sliding out of his palms in a lightning-fast motion and placing itself in front of the bullet’s path before they could meet their intended target.

“Please. Have mercy on him,” Thor begged, his eyes wide and pleading.

Clint merely snarled, and Natasha placed a soothing hand on his arm, taking them both back a few steps.

Loki looked between them all, stopping at his brother, and their eyes met for a few seconds. Then he began to laugh. It was bitter and evil and edged with a note of insanity that sent a chill of fear down Steve’s spine.

“Oh, Brother Dearest- you could have stopped what is about to come had you simply forbid your heart from ruling your head. You still choose to save me, after all I have done?”

Thor set his jaw, and raised his hammer.  
“You are still my brother, and I still love you. But that shall not stop me from taking you down if I must, it would be unwise of you to think otherwise.”

Loki cackled, walking forward again, but stopping as Steve stepped forward and raised his own gun toward the Asgardian.

“I don’t know why you’re here, but whatever your plan is, you’re still outnumbered. And we have guns. And a magical hammer. I have no idea how you got out of whatever prison you came from, but for your own sake, I suggest you head right back there,” Steve said dangerously, cocking the gun and trying not to look at Thor’s crushed face.

If Loki needed to be taken out at some point, then that was what would happen. Steve couldn’t risk the team for the sake of trying to spare a man who was long past the point of redemption.

“Oh, Steven- you think your mortal instruments would work on me? I am surrounded by an energy barrier anyway- nothing can get in or out. One of my finest works, if I do say so myself.”

“So, you have a force-field _inside_ a force-field? Overcompensation much,” Tony muttered, stepping out of Steve’s shadow to glare irritably toward their imposter, no sign of fear on his face at all.

Inwardly, Steve facepalmed. Whatever Tony might believe about his own self-preservation instincts, he was _wrong_. That man had a death wish.

“Brother, I beg of you, return to Asgard. Whatever plans you have for us, leave it. There is no need-“

“Oh, Thor, I assure you, there will be no going back. I have spent months planning for this- planning for my revenge. I intend to see it through to the very end.” Loki hissed, eyes flashing in rage.

“And what is your dastardly revenge-plan, then?” Clint spoke up, every syllable he spoke dripping with hatred and disgust, gun clutched so tightly in his hands that his knuckles were white.

Loki’s face turned quickly, acknowledging Clint with a knowing smile that had Natasha holding the collar of the archer’s shirt to stop him from running at the man and having it out with him there and then. Out of all of them, Clint had probably been affected by the God of Mischief the most; his brain had been pulled out and used as Loki’s plaything, making him nothing more than a tool, used to kill innocent people against his will. Clint had always sworn he would get his revenge one day, and now it seemed he was barely able to hold himself back.

But then Loki’s gaze turned away from Clint, and landed instead on Tony.

“There are people in this room who are very much aware of what it is like to be exposed to their worst fears, aren’t there?” he said softly, and Tony sucked in a quick breath, eyes widening in surprise and apprehension.

Steve felt his heart begin to beat faster, starting to see where this may be heading. His hand tightening subconsciously around Tony’s arm, tugging him back a little. Loki would have to step over his dead body himself before he could hope to get his hands on Tony.

“How the _fuck_ do you know anything about that- you’ve been locked up in Asgard since the Battle of New York.” Tony asked viciously, trying to pull himself out of Steve’s grip.

Loki shrugged, fingering the staff (now thankfully missing it’s stone of death, but not-so-thankfully still with the deadly blade attached to the edge of it), wandering further into their space and causing Thor, who was nearest, to stumble back a few steps as he met the energy-barrier that surrounded Loki.

“How do you think I got myself out of prison in the first place? I have eyes and ears everywhere. I heard about my dear brother lamenting the entire story to his mother, and boy, what a story it was. Your friends committed an act even I would be hesitant to go through with. If I had a conscience, of course.”  
Loki stopped, a small smile playing about his lips, as he turned to glance at Steve.  
“Although, I suppose I am harboring under the assumption that these people are actually your friends at all. It’s hard to distinguish between real friendship and… what is the Midgardian term? Oh, yes, sucking up. You are the provider of everyone’s equipment, everyone’s home, after all. No wonder they want to try and get on your good si-“

“Shut _up_.” Steve growled, as Natasha began cracking her knuckles dangerously, the look on her face terrifying enough to make even Loki stop talking, if only for a moment.

Tony was stood to Steve’s right, pale and stiff, his eyes hard and his shoulders tense. He was steadfastly not meeting anyone but Loki’s eye- the flashbacks of the pool and the water and the laughing faces of his team as they threw him in, uncaring of his screams or his pleading for them to stop-

Steve slid his hand downward from Tony’s forearm until it rested in his hand and gripped his fingers fiercely, and Tony found the images subsiding, replaced instead with the memories of baking cakes with Thor at 3 am, or playing chess against Natasha and gloating his victory whilst trying to avoid painful punches to the arm.

Or movie-night with Steve. Or impromptu robot-building with Steve.  
(Or being in love with Steve.)

“You’re wrong. I know the real thing when I see it, believe me- there’ve been enough people who’ve faked it before, and this sure as hell ‘aint it. Go take your shitty attempts at emotional manipulation to Howard Stark- he’ll show you how to do it right. Because _that_ \- that was a poor attempt, buddy.” Tony drawled, rolling his eyes and trying to pretend he wasn’t clutching so tightly at Steve’s hand that he could feel the pulse of his heartbeat underneath his fingers.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, I suppose,” Loki said, shrugging indifferently. “Anyway, I feel like we are deviating from the matter at hand. We already have one member of your little gang who have been presented with their nightmares- when I heard the story, I thought to myself; well, that seems rather unfair, doesn’t it? For one person to have to go through that, whilst the perpetrators of the crime remain unpunished for it. I’m settling the scores, really. Returning balance to the universe.” Loki continued, strolling around the room as five pairs of eyes glared at him viciously.

 

There was a brief second of silence where Loki tapped his staff against the floor, and then suddenly, the whole room began… _sparkling_. Shining and blurring around the edges, a sight that made Steve feel slightly nauseous.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t good.

Thor, if possible, began paling even further, trying to take a step toward his insane brother and being met with the wall of invisible energy that surrounded him instead. He fell to the ground beside Bruce, and gave one last attempt at waking up their friend, before giving up and staring upward in frustration.

“Loki. I do not know where you have found the power or skill for this, but you must _stop_. Please.” Thor pleaded, beginning to raise his hammer and summon electricity, in a desperate attempt to break down the barrier surrounding Loki.

But Loki merely laughed again, raising his hands to gesture around him in glee.

“Don’t worry, Avengers. I have not made this a mission of certain death. Probable death, perhaps. But not certain. It’s simple, really. I am sending you into a world of my creation, and your mission is to escape with your lives. That is all. There is one portal, at the other end of the map. You reach it, you win- I will accept my defeat and flee without another word. You fail? Well, I’ll leave you to figure that out.” Loki explained, and the room was spinning further now, faster and faster, darker and darker until Steve could barely even see any resemblance to the tower any more.

Thor stared silently above him, before turning to face his friends with a look of complete despair on his face.

“I am sorry, my friends. For what is about to come,” he whispered, beginning to mutter things under his breath that no one could understand.

“Why the hell are you _doing this_? Why not just kill us?” Natasha asked, trying to push through the centrifugal force that was pushing them all away from each other and reach Tony and Steve on the other side of the room, but only managing to get a few steps before she had to pull back again, the push against her too much to handle.

“Well, Miss Romanov, that wouldn’t be half as fun, would it?” Loki shouted above the howl of wind that was pulling them all apart, pulling Tony slowly out of Steve’s grip with every second passed.

And as suddenly as he had appeared, Loki was gone again, leaving the six Avengers trying desperately to hold on to one another as the world around them spun and contorted.

“Don’t let go of my hand!” Steve shouted to Tony, as the winds whipped his hair around his face and made his pyjamas (he was about to be transported to another world and he was wearing his _fucking_ _pyjamas_ , of course) flap around him.

“I’m trying not to, but as you can see it’s a little fucking difficult!” Tony yelled back, and Steve could feel his grip loosening, unwilling to press any tighter in fear of breaking bones.

He looked desperately around him, seeing Natasha and Clint go through much the same process, desperately trying to hold on to each other as unknown forces dragged them apart. Steve could still see Bruce, beginning to wake up in confusion as the time-stop spell wore off, looking around him in complete bafflement from his position on the floor.

Steve was suddenly hit by a sudden burst of force, hitting him like a solid wall and knocking the breath out of his lungs. He felt Tony’s fingers slip through his own, heard the yells of his voice mixed with those of the man he had just lost, and then there was noting else but darkness as his head hit the floor with a sharp crack.


	3. Chapter 3

____________________********************____________________

 

Thor felt the familiar trace of Loki’s magic, even before he had begun to cast the curse around his teammates. It hung in the air; tangy and filled with a sharpness that pricked on Thor’s skin like thousands of tiny needles.

He sensed where this was going, even before Loki began explaining his plan, and he could only give his friend’s a quick word of apology before he was forced to abandon them, muttering the beginning’s of a simple anti-energy incantation his mother had taught him long, long ago, in order to help him ward off his brother’s trickery.

He hoped desperately that Loki was not aware Thor knew how to counteract his magic, and had not planned accordingly for it. If he had, then his friends were well and truly doomed.

But as he chanted, he felt the pull just under his sternum that signaled his release from the magical portal Loki had conjured up in the middle of the tower, and before he could even get the chance to tell his friends he would try to keep them safe, he was snapped back from the magical bubble like an elastic band, and thrown into the kitchen where he collided against the cabinets with a crash.

 

He hated magic almost as much as Tony did. But now, watching his friends get sent into that word of hell by Loki’s own hand, Thor really wished he had learnt how to do a plural cast, and save all of his friends rather than just himself.

 

But he had always been selfish. All those years ago, as a young warrior desperate for battle, why would he have ever needed to plural cast? As long as he got out, everything was fine. So he had shoved away his mother’s attempts to get him to learn, and left it to Loki to grow more powerful every day instead.

There was not a day that went by when Thor did not regret his actions of his (not too distant) youth.

 

Picking up Mjolnir from it’s spot across the room, Thor brushed himself down and headed toward the swirling mass of energy his friends were trapped inside, seeing if there was any way for him to breach the barrier and collect his teammates before it was too late. He felt the winds as he drew nearer, whipping at his face and pushing him away from his destination; even managing to absorb the lightning Thor threw at it as if it were nothing.

He growled and ground his teeth, cursing his idiot brother for his games. However he had managed to worm his way out of that prison cell in Asgard, Thor was going to make sure the next time he went, he stayed there. Because he loved Loki dearly, yes- but not enough to allow him to run amok in the nine realms and hurt the people Thor loved.

Like he was doing now.

 

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the swirling mass of energy that had engulfed the living room was gone again, spinning itself into nothingness and leaving behind his five friends, now all unconscious on the floor. Loki towered over them, his long hair a mess of windswept tangles and a viciously cruel smile on his face as he stepped forward.

“You touch them again, brother, and I will end you.” Thor growled, the words ringing low and ominous in his throat as he stepped forward and revealed himself to Loki’s turned back, Mjolnir raised and crackling with electricity.

Loki’s whole body tensed up, his head turning almost 360 degrees in order to stare at his brother, who was very much conscious, in shock and surprise.

“You are not the only one who learnt how to cast and repel spells,” Thor explained, a tiny grin of victory on his lips as he looked at Loki’s face, which was marked with uncontrolled anger at being one-upped for a few seconds, before he smoothed it out into one of his usual manic grins.

“Do you like what I’ve done, Thor? You must admit, there is a certain finesse to my plan that you cannot help but admire- it is quite glorious, after all.”

“Loki, this work is mediocre at best. I have seen Steve create better portals than that, and he’s been sleeping through their technological revolution.” Thor goaded, knowing exactly what buttons to push in order to rile Loki up.

“You have no idea about the complexity of this, Thor! Do you understand the power I had to use in order to make this work? Do you know the months I have spent perfecting, adjusting, making sure every detail was perfect? This is a work of art! The only flaw in my plan is you, as usual. And trust me, I shall be rectifying that,” Loki hissed, stepping away from Thor’s unconscious teammates and toward him instead, exactly as he had predicted.

Thor raised his hammer in readiness just as Loki lifted his staff, both of them locked in a stare so icy it would make a Frost Giant feel cold.

 

This was about to get interesting.

 

___________________********************____________________

 

When Steve woke up, he was alone.

Which wasn’t particularly surprising, to be honest. It wasn’t as if Loki was going to make this easy for them. Steve was lucky he was alive at all, considering the fact that they were now completely at the mercy of an Insane Alien Being who had previously tried to conquer the world.

Opening his eyes and sitting up painfully, he lifted a hand to the back of his head, checking for injury as he looked at his surroundings with careful precision.

It was dark. That was the first thing that jumped to the forefront of Steve’s mind. It was dark, it was cold, and it looked… _old_.

Paint peeled off the walls, and the corners of the corridor Steve had woken up in were rotten from damp. There was a thick layer of dust everywhere; Steve was covered in dust bunnies from the floor he had been lying on.

It smelt abandoned. Like that aroma you could only come across from houses long since deserted, left to crumble away and fade away, forgotten in time.

Steve shivered. He’d smelt many houses like that back in the 40’s, when he had a part-time caretaking job for a block of flats a few streets down. He’d walked in to so many houses that had once housed families, lovers or elderly or children or anyone in between.

They’d all had to leave. Because the Depression sucked, and people couldn’t even afford basic housing sometimes. All those children and elderly and families were probably on the streets after leaving their homes, the only remnant of them ever being there at all was that smell.

Steve had grown to hate that smell. To fear it. Because him and his mother had been so close to losing their own home- to becoming one of the many, having to give up everything they had in order to simply pay the bills...

 

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he got to his feet; wincing at the throb of pain his head threw at him in punishment for the sudden movement. His hand hit the floor again, and this time rather than feel the splintered wood panels underneath his fingertips, he felt the touch of cool metal.

Looking down in surprise, he realized that there was a plate of metal sat parallel with him, a strap of metal running along the width of it. His heart nearly jumped right of his mouth at first, thinking that somehow his precious shield just might have somehow miraculously found it’s way to him despite all odds- but it was quickly stamped on when he realized that this wasn’t his exquisite vibranium work of art, but merely a simple metal shield. Perhaps enough to cause some damage, but nowhere near as precise or deadly as his own.

He sighed, and picked it up off the floor, sliding the strap around his arm and hoisting it until it was level with his chest, thankful that at least Loki had been kind enough to give him some form of protection against… whatever this was.

He really needed to find the others.

The corridor was long, and there were many forks, turning and twisting and all exactly the same as the other. Peeling paint and damp on the walls and dust on the floors and that _damn smell_ , lingering in his nose and refusing to be ignored.

Everything was so quiet. Only the sound of Steve’s breathing and the creaking of floorboards could be heard as he walked down the seemingly endless corridors, his pace growing steadily quicker the further he went on.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

“TONY? THOR? _ANYONE?_ ” Steve yelled, his voice travelling down the corridor and fading into the darkness, no word of reply at his yells.

God, these halls were beginning to feel claustrophobic.

Steve had no choice but to keep walking. His feet creaked with every step, and his fingers tapped out a nervous beat against one another in a desperate attempt at making some noise.

He had the urge to sing. Maybe ‘Star Spangled Man’. That was definitely an upbeat song. He could sing that- just very, very quietly.

He began humming the tune, trying to ignore the hairs standing up at the back of his neck and the irrational fear of the dark that was currently thriving in his subconscious, putting him on edge. It was stupid and childish and he was _Captain America_ , for God’s Sake. Superheroes weren’t afraid of the dark.

Then there was a creak of a floorboard from behind him that he definitely did not make, and he turned around so fast it would’ve put a bullet to shame.

Nothing. Empty. Just his imagination.

_Get your act together. You’re letting Loki get to you- letting his tricks in your head. What would Natasha say if she saw you right now?_

“Fuck,” Steve cursed, turning back around and beginning his brisk pace again, turning a corner to the right and seeing yet another endless corridor.

He bit back a groan, beginning to make his way through the dark corridors, sticking to the edges of the walls, where a few measly gas lamps lit up the halls. He needed to find his friends. Because the likelihood of Loki sending him to something as simple as a never-ending corridor were slim, and no doubt things were about to go very bad at any moment.

Steve turned another corner, and this time, he realized that there was a door at the far end of the corridor. Just the one, thick oak and the usual peeling paint, but it was a door in a world full of endless corridors and at that moment Steve could’ve kissed the damn thing. He laughed out loud and began jogging down the long hall and toward his destination, wondering vaguely what would be on the other side but not much caring for anything other than the fact that it would be a change from the endless passages he had been walking through.

 

Then all the gaslights blew out, and Steve stopped laughing.

 

He froze, trying to squint through the complete pitch-blackness and ignore the sudden jump of his heartbeat and the overwhelming silence that was surrounding him, the only noise being his fast breaths and the thrum of his own heartbeat.

 _Keep going. Get to the door. It’s just the lights-_ Steve thought to himself, repeating it like a mantra as he walked briskly down the corridor, putting his hands forward and feeling his way as fast as he could. He wasn’t used complete blindness- even in the dark he had always been able to see since the serum had enhanced his vision.

As Steve stumbled blindly down the corridor, he realized that a dim light had been flickered on at the other end of the corridor. Just the one, glowing dimly from behind Steve.

Sighing in relief at the sudden (if tiny) burst of light, Steve turned around to face the source. As his eyes focused on the gas light to the side of the wall, he felt every limb freeze in a sudden overwhelming sense of shock, as his mind realized what was happening.

A clown.

Under the light.

With a balloon in one hand,  
and a kitchen knife in the other.

 

Steve had never liked clowns. Even when he was little and he saw them at children’s parties or carnivals, the clowns had always terrified him. Maybe it was the painted faces, or the weird clothes they always wore. Steve didn’t know. Steve didn’t care. All he knew was that he had lived his whole life with that irrational fear, and now he was alone in a pitch-black corridor, with a _fucking clown_.

 

The thing, whatever the fuck was underneath the painted red smile and the ridiculous red wig, looked at him for a good few seconds, before smiling. And beginning to walk down the corridor, right toward Steve.

“Oh, _hell motherfucking NO_.” Steve choked, stumbling backwards and gripping his shield underneath shaking fingers as the clown increased it’s pace, gaslights lighting up it’s path as it got further and further along.

He turned around, sprinting at full power toward the end of the corridor, still unable to see where he was going. Whatever the damn thing was, Steve was pretty sure he could outrun it, and he guessed he must be near the end of the corridor by now.

His guess turned out to be correct, as he slammed into it a few seconds later, sending him toppling over to the floor as he lost his balance.

The thing was getting closer every second, it’s feet making the woodwork groan as it padded down the corridor, knife glinting in the soft light of the lamps. It was the silence that was scaring Steve the most; it was all-consuming. The walls seemed to absorb any sound at all, leaving only the creak of floorboards to be heard.

Taking a deep breath, Steve jumped to his feet and turned the handle, trying to keep a lid on all the childish panic that was welling up inside him. If worst came to worse, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t overpower the damn thing.

He tugged on the handle and pushed his weight into it, but the door remained firmly shut. Locked, from the inside most probably.

“Fuck!” Steve swore, turning his head to see the clown raise its hand and open its palm, letting the balloon float away from his grip.

 

When the balloon touched the ceiling, the lights went out again.

 

Steve turned back around and put all his strength into a kick at the door, but the thing refused to budge. He tried again, this time bringing his shoulder down on it quickly afterwards.

Nothing. And the creak of the floorboards was getting nearer.

He turned around, and brought his shield back up, eyes squinting desperately in the darkness for any signs of movement.

 

This was just a game. Loki was just trying to mess with him. The thing was only there to scare him. And if Steve wasn’t scared of it, then Loki loses, right?

Now he just needed to convince his heart of that, and maybe it would stop beating at a thousand miles a minute.

 

_Creak._

 

_Creak._

 

_Creak._

 

 

 

Then silence. The single light above Steve flickered back to life.  
The clown was a meter away from him; its knife raised and a smile stretching across its face.

 

Steve brought his shield up to smash it right on its face, but before he got the opportunity to bring the metal downward, there were three gunshots fired in quick concession, and black liquid began seeping out of the satiny fabric of its shirt.

The clown gave one last smile to Steve, before keeling over and lying motionless on the floor.

“ _SHIT!_ ” Clint yelled from the other side of the hall, and Steve jerked his head upward to see his friend, staring at the corpse under Steve’s feet in shock.

“IS THAT A FUCKING _CLOWN_?!” Clint yelled, beginning to jog toward Steve, gun still raised in his hand.

“UNFORTUNATELY, YES. WHERE’D YOU GET THE GUN?” Steve shouted in reply, moving forward to meet Clint in the middle, stopping only to pluck the long blade out of the thing’s fingers, ignoring the empty eyes or the pools of black blood surrounding it.

“It came here with me, I think.” Clint answered, slowing his jog down as he reached his friend and throwing an arm around Steve’s shoulder, gripping tightly.

“You okay?” Clint asked.

“Been better. I fucking hate clowns.” Steve whispered, trying to push the image of the thing walking down the corridor towards him out of his mind and focus on the warmth of Clint’s arm around his shoulder.

One teammate down. Four to go.

They broke away, Clint striding ahead toward the door and Steve following close behind. Clint stared down at the clown underneath them, and at the black blood pooling around its waist.

“Your fears are like an extract out of ‘The shining’. Long, abandoned corridors and clowns- how original. I kinda expected something more… Captain-America-centered, to be honest.” Clint said, kneeling down until he was eye-level with the lock and feeling about in one of his pockets before pulling out a bobby pin and beginning to work it through the lock.

“What…what do you mean?” Steve asked, eyes drawn together in confusion at Clint’s words.

“Well, I dunno, I guess I just expected your scene to be more…cold. Maybe Loki’s digging into our most primal fears, the ones we’ve had for the longest. That might explain the tiny tunnel I had to crawl through in order to get here.” Clint said, mostly to himself as he worked the lock.

When Steve just looked confused again, Clint rolled his eyes.

“Claustrophobia. I couldn’t stand small spaces when I was a kid, and I still don’t like them now. I woke up in a tight tunnel, you woke up in… an abandoned house? With clowns? In the dark? Man, you’re like… every stereotypical scared kid ever.”

Steve huffed indignantly and punched Clint's arm lightly, simply glad that there was someone around to fill the silences now.

A few seconds passed in silence, before Clint grunted in annoyance and pulled the pin out, shrugging his shoulders in defeat.

“I don’t have the right tools to pick this with one of Natasha’s clips. Give me a proper lock-picking set and I might stand half a chance, but… _holy sHIT!_ ” Clint yelled suddenly, picking his gun up off the floor and shooting another bullet right between the eyes of yet another clown who had just turned the corner.

Steve jerked back at the sudden bang and the sight of another clown topple to the ground, it’s axe making a thud as it hit the floorboards.

The clown that had been behind its partner scurried away, scrambling back around the corner before Clint could get a solid hit.

“YEAH, BITCH BETTER RUN!” Clint shouted after them, walking forward a few steps before taking aim at the corner and waiting for the next clown to arrive.

Steve watched, horrified, as five more clowns trundled around the corner, various weaponry clutched in their hands and sickening smiles on each of their faces.

This couldn’t be happening. They were not going to leave this world via _death by clown_.

“Clint, how many rounds do you have left?” Steve asked, pulling Clint’s hand backward before he could fire at any of the oncoming enemies.

“From my count, I’ve got eight.” Clint replied. Then he pulled out of Steve’s grip and fired at a clown who had looked as if it were about to throw the knife in its hand, before looking back to Steve.  
“I meant seven.”

“Shoot at the lock. It looks like we’re about to be outnumbered real soon, and your bullets are gonna run out before they do,” Steve ordered, pulling Clint back and keeping an eye on the steadily-approaching swarm of clowns get nearer and nearer with each step.

Without another word, Clint took aim and fired two bullets right into the hinges of the doors, and then Steve kicked with all his force. It creaked a little more this time, but didn’t budge.

Steve and Clint both swore, and then ducked down together as one of the clowns at the front hurled an axe. It hit the door, and buried itself in the woodwork with a thud.

They were still a long way away. These were some very, _very_ strong clowns.

“Fire at the lock!” Steve said, pulling the axe out of the wood and bringing it down on the hinge of the door, hearing the brilliant sound of metal giving way as he did so.

The clowns, sensing their victims were close to escape, began to hurry their pace to a run, closing down the space between them quickly. They had maybe seven seconds before it became point blank range, and Steve was desperately trying to hold back all the buried-away childhood fears and dormant panic that had awoken inside him, swirling around in his gut and making his hands shake with fear.

 

Fucking _clowns._ He hated the damn things.

 

Clint fired another three rounds into the lock, just as Steve brought the axe down on the second hinge and felt it give way, and both of them stood up to smash their shoulders into it, feeling the door finally, _finally_ give in and tumble over, sending both of them hurtling into the room on the other side of it, just as the clowns reached touching distance of them.

“Time to go!” Clint shouted, moving his fall into a roll and landing back on his feet with grace, pulling Steve’s arm along with him as he went.

They hurtled forward like the devil himself was on their heels; Steve sprinting far ahead and using his strength to drag Clint along with him, hauling them both around a corner and then continuing onward.They ran and ran until they were both panting for breath, and waited until they sure that no clowns had managed to follow them before finally letting up, stopping to lean against a wall and look at their surroundings.

This place was more like a military base than a house. Everything was metal- the floor, the walls, the ceiling. There were railings running along the sides, and a staircase that lead up to a second floor on the right. The corridors were shrouded in darkness, and yet there was a strange white glow that seemed to bounce off the surfaces.  
It looked like moonlight. And even if that was impossible, thanks to the lack of windows, it still soothed Steve’s fast-beating heart a little.

Then his mind wandered to Tony, and the tiny piece of calm he had managed to find evaporated on the spot.

He had barely been able to escape from his own personal nightmare, and that had been thanks to Clint in the end anyway. What if Tony was alone- what if he didn’t have someone to help him?

What if Tony was already dead?

What if _everyone_ was already dead? Clint and Steve could be searching this place for the rest of their lives, and they’d never know.

 

 _'Don’t think about it. Tony will be fine. Everyone will be fine. Just keep going'_ \- Steve told himself, pushing the thought away and trying to get himself into the role of Captain America, brave and fearless leader, rather than the panicking wreck of Steve Rogers.

 

“Is this one of yours?” Clint asked, and Steve was thrown by the question for half a second before realizing that Clint was asking if this place was a part of one of his fears, as the house had been.

“No. But if you started out in a tunnel, and I started out in an abandoned house, then it must mean that this is someone else’s nightmare…”

“Which also means someone is close by.” Clint finished, and Steve nodded along with him, flipping the knife absent-mindedly in one hand and trailing the axe along the floor with the other.

“What’s the plan then, Cap? Think there’s a chance Loki’s gonna let us out of this?” Clint asked as they searched, his eyes hunting for the head of coppery red that Steve knew he was looking for.

“I don’t know, Clint. Wherever he’s sent us… we’re not going to get out of it easily. From what I got from his crazy explanation, we’re in some kinda world full of all of our…fears? I mean, it fits with what we’ve just experienced.” Steve said, his mind still trying to get itself around that idea.

A world. Made out of his worst nightmares and darkest fears. Steve was fucking glad he’s said his morning prayer.

“I’d say our main objective right now is to find the others. Then once we’ve all regrouped, we start making our way through this place, and try to find the exit portal. That’s all I’ve got right now, Clint.” Steve admitted, biting his lip and gesturing for his friend to follow him up the flight of stairs that lead them to the second floor, giving them a better vantage point of the layout below.

“Well, it’s the best plan yet, so I’ll take it.” Clint said, shrugging.

 

They carried on, occasionally bouncing questions off one another and pausing to look at their surroundings when they entered a new area of the building, but aside from that there was silence, both men concentrated solely on finding the next member of their team that must surely be somewhere nearby.

“Wait- Clint stop,” Steve said suddenly, putting his hand up and halting their path abruptly.

“Do you hear that?” Steve asked, raising his index finger and pointing it upward, looking to Clint questioningly.

The other man paused, cocking his head and listening out for any sounds with his well-trained ear.

“I can’t, no. But then again, you’ve got enhanced hearing, so I'm gonna take your word as truth,” Clint said, stepping forward toward Steve and raising his gun just a fraction.

“What did you hear, Steve?” He asked.

Steve stared around him, at the long empty corridors that lead into huge rooms full of nothing, and he furrowed his eyes slightly.

He could’ve sworn he had heard something. Distant, and far away. But definitely something…

“I think it was Ton-“

 

Steve never got to finish that sentence. Because at that moment, someone screamed, and the words felt as if they had been ripped right out of his throat.

The noise bounced off the metal of the walls, deafening Steve’s oversensitive ears. It was high pitched, strangled in agony and gut-wrenching terror, each choked yell lasting for what seemed like forever. The room was full of the noise, such a sound of pain Steve had never even heard before.

He felt his whole body seize up. For a few seconds, time just… _stopped_. He heart stayed silent in his chest, his body remained frozen. Nothing moved. Nothing so much as existed in that space of time.

Twisted and broken and terrified though that voice was, Steve would know it anywhere.

 

 

_**Tony.** _

 

As Steve reacted to the sound, it seemed Clint became aware too, his own body mirroring Steve’s as he jerked violently, the skin on his face draining of it’s color faster than anything Steve had ever seen before.

 

At the same moment Steve screamed out Tony’s name, Clint did the same for Natasha.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve set off running immediately, throwing himself forward and rocketing down the corridor, Clint hot on his tail despite Steve’s inhuman speed.

A part of him knew that something wasn’t right about this. That there had to be a reason why Steve could only hear Tony, and Clint could only hear Natasha. But listening to that scream bounce off the walls and echo in Steve’s ears, so terrifyingly agonized and broken, Steve couldn’t afford to think about anything other than finding Tony and then ripping apart the thing responsible for causing this.

He threw himself forward, slamming into a wall with the momentum as he raced around the corner and continued running, his eyes sweeping wildly around the corridors in search for something that might give him a clue as to where Tony was.

A particularly loud scream rattled off the walls just then, and Steve’s legs almost gave out entirely as inescapable panic overcame him. He heard his own voice, choking on air as he called out Tony’s name in terror.

It was only when Clint passed him, grabbing at Steve’s arm and dragging him along with a cry of “ _Keep_ _going_ , Rogers!” that he realized he had stopped moving completely, the shock getting the better of him and causing him to freeze in the middle of the corridor without even knowing it.

The sharp jolt of his arm in its socket as Clint used his own force to hurl Steve forward awoke his mind with a shock, and he cursed out loud, aware that he had wasted precious seconds in his panic. It didn’t take long for him to regain his pace however, leaping off the walls as he turned corners and then continuing to sprint ahead, mind running a thousand miles a minute as he thought of the horrifying things tony might be being subjected to.

He forced that thought to the back of his mind; refusing to let those thoughts overtake him. It would make him stop again- and neither he nor Tony could afford that.

 

Even with his enhanced hearing, Steve couldn’t get a solid direction he was supposed to be heading in. The sounds were ricocheting off every metal surface, and he was moving too fast to be able to hear anything else other than the screams in the air and the wind whipping around in his ears.

The Steve Rogers part of him was screaming at him to keep going, to not stop running until Tony was right there with him, safe in his arms. It didn’t matter if he had to run around the damn place for the rest of his life, he just couldn’t. Stop. Running.

But he couldn’t afford to be Steve Rogers right now. This whole place was designed to scare Steve Rogers- if he wanted to make it out of this alive, if any of them wanted to make it out of this alive, then they needed Captain America. And Captain America would stop running, in order to do a proper assessment of the situation.

 

Slowing his sprint into a halt in that corridor and focusing his hearing in on Tony’s screams was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do in his life.

 

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the sound, feeling the high notes ring in his ears and bury themselves in his bones. Every second dragged on like an eternity, but he willed himself to keep trying, keep searching for a specific direction the noise was coming from.

There was silence for a few seconds, and then another scream curdled in the air. Steve did a full body shudder as he felt Clint catch up with him again, an urgent hand on his arm, trying to drag him forward once more- but this time Steve wasn’t moving. Clint, seeming to understand what Steve was trying to achieve, stopped too, his breathing heavy and labored as he stood by Steve and kept a hand on his shoulder in an attempt at comfort.

They stood like that, together in the darkened corridor, listening to the screams of the people they both loved for a good ten seconds. Every fresh yell eliciting a jerk and shudder from each man. Steve's eyes were forcefully screwed shut, and he could feel himself gripping the railings at the side of the wall so tightly they were pretty much melded to the shape of his closed fist.

“North. Head north. I can’t… just- go North,” Steve choked out suddenly, eyes snapping open and pulling Clint along as he surged forward again.

Steve was pretty sure if he listened any longer, he’d go insane.

Once again, he picked up speed, careering through the corridors at a speed that would be illegal on most roads, feeling the strands of his hair whip around wildly over his forehead as he slammed into a corner and sped around it, eyes flashing all over the place in search of that familiar brunet head of hair.

Turning another sharp corner, he flung his shoulder into the door in front of him and sent himself flying into another long, thin corridor, barely wide enough to fit two people side by side. It was almost pitch back in there, and it took Steve a few seconds to adjust his eyes to the darkness that lay ahead.

He ran forward, suddenly becoming aware of the fact that there was silence in the air for the first time since Steve had set off running.

No screaming. No noise. Just silence once more.

“TONY?” Steve yelled, hearing his own voice bounce off the walls this time as he slowed his run down to a jog, turning his head to try and hear a reply.

 

… “ _Steve?_ ”

 

Steve turned his head around so fast you wouldn’t even have been able to see it. The voice was behind him, raspy and soft, just as a voice would sound if it had been screaming like that for five minutes. He turned his body around, eyes peering desperately into the darkness, searching for a body amongst the shadows.

Then he saw one. Far at the back, barely visible apart from the way it was shuddering so violently that Steve could make it out against the still background.

The air hissed around him as Steve jumped forward, relief washing over him like a tidal wave as he stumbled forward and saw Tony doing the same, his steps unstable and shaky, but steps nonetheless.

At least he could walk. Steve was just glad he’d found him alive, and once he reached his friend, he was never letting go of the man again. The ghost of all those screams were still ringing in his ears like they had never stopped, the memory just as vivid as if it were still happening.

“Jesus- Tony!” Steve yelled, his voice cracking toward the end of the sentence, beginning to make out the features of Tony’s face as he got closer.

He seemed relatively unscathed, no visible marks on his face or body. But he was shaking wildly; Steve could see that even from his distance. It looked as if he could barely stand, and that just spurred Steve on to run faster, turning his jog into a sprint as the anxiety gnawed on the back of his mind.

He had to be okay. He was going to be okay.

 

But something made Steve stop in his tracks when he was barely more than five steps away. Something quite substantial.

Tony’s eyes were completely black. And he was holding a gun, pointing it suspiciously close to where Steve was stood.

“Tony?” Steve said, stumbling backward a few steps, eyes widening as he watched the thing- Tony, _whatever it was_ , lift the gun further into the air and step forward, his face breaking out into a manic grin that was definitely not Tony’s own brand of smirk.

The corridor was tiny, and Steve was still too far away to grab the gun. If Tony shot now, he was dead-

But there was a sudden movement from the end of the corridor, and a third figure entered into the fray, scrambling around the corner and hurling something through the air that had Steve ducking away instinctively.

By the time he had lifted his head back away from where his arms had come up to cover himself, the Tony with the gun was looking rather surprised, as he fell to the ground with a thud at the same time the wrench that had been smashed against the back of his skull clattered to the ground with him.

Steve yelped, scrambling forward in panic, praying that Tony was still okay and only unconscious. Whatever had possessed him to hold a gun up to Steve could surely be fixed, but only if he was still alive.

 

“Stay away. Not… Tony” Came an out-of-breath voice from the end of the corridor.

Steve jerked his head upward, having completely forgotten that there had to have been someone who was responsible for throwing the wrench at Tony in the first place.

His eyes locked on to a pair of coffee-colored brown ones, with strands of dark hair falling on to his face in disarray as the man bent down to catch his breath, sucking in deep breaths of oxygen as if he had been sprinting a marathon.

It was Tony.

Steve looked down toward the Tony on the floor, and then the one standing at the end of the corridor, and furrowed his brow in confusion.

“NATASHA! THIS WAY!” Tony suddenly screamed, turning his back to Steve for just a moment and sticking his head back around the corner in order to call out for their friend.

There were faint footsteps that steadily grew louder, and then Natasha stumbled around the corner, looking more disturbed than Steve had ever seen her, her hair a wild mess and her eyes blown wide.

“What’s my favorite pop song?” Tony asked suddenly, and Natasha raised her gun until it was pointed right between Steve’s eyes.

“ _What the hell_ is going o-“

“Answer the damn question, Rogers, or I’m putting a bullet in your brain. I’ve had enough demons fucking with me today, but if I have to waste a bullet on another one, I will.” Natasha demanded, stepping forward and pulling the safety off with an ominous click.

“What the- okay, _wait_ , it’s a trick question. According to you, pop music is the Justin Hammer of all musical genres. You once kicked Clint out of the tower for a full week because he kept playing ‘Call Me Maybe’ on repeat.” Steve spluttered, raising his hands in a sign of peace.

Natasha and Tony stared at him for a few seconds, before Tony placed a hand on her forearm and she lowered the gun.

“Where’s Clint? Is he safe?” Natasha asked urgently, beginning to walk and sweeping right past Steve in search of her friend.

“He was just behind me. He should be coming up any second now. He’s fine.” Steve assured her.

She gave a small nod and tight lipped smile, then began jogging down the corridor in search of her partner, gun still raised.

Steve turned back to Tony, who was still breathing rather heavily, his eyes blown wide in fear and panic still written on all over his face. He made to step forward, but Steve stepped backward again, suddenly wary.

This could be a trick. The real Tony could be the one on the floor, and these two could just be the imitations. The fakes. Steve wouldn’t even be able to tell.

“Look at the blood, Steve.” Tony said quietly, pointing to the one on the floor and at the small trickle of liquid that was dripping slowly down the back of his head.

 

Black blood.

 

“I’m the real deal, Steve.”

“Prove it.”

Tony paused, thinking for a second, before smiling a little.

“Your favorite color is orange, because it reminds you of the sunset you would always watch with Bucky, back as a kid in Brooklyn. When you didn’t have television, and you were too poor to go out and watch a movie or too sick to play with the other kids. You would just call at Bucky’s house and watch the sun go down on the roof of his apartment, whilst you played poker. You still do it now, but you say it’s not the same sunset as it used to be in the forties.” Tony said quietly.

Steve stayed where we was for a few seconds, as did Tony- and then it seemed both of them broke at the same time, jerking forward and running toward each other.

Tony threw his arms around Steve’s shoulders and Steve lifted Tony off the ground in return, both of them clutching each other close, heartbeat to heartbeat. Steve felt the fluffy hair under his chin as Tony buried his neck into Steve’s shoulder, his breathing shaky and unsteady.

“ I thought… _fuck_ , I heard you- but I couldn’t _find you_ and you sounded so… _shit,_ I was so-“ Tony whispered, his voice cutting off halfway through his sentence as he took a sharp intake of breath and gripped the collar of Steve’s shirt even tighter.

Steve paused, confused for a moment, before his mind caught up with what Tony was saying, and he gasped in understanding. Tony had obviously been running to find Steve, because he had heard Steve’s screams, just like Steve had heard Tony’s.

“I know. I… it wasn’t real. You’re okay, right?” Steve asked, pulling away slightly in order to look the real Tony over, his eyes canning worriedly all over the other man’s body, checking for injury.

Tony nodded, and then took yet another deep breath, trying to calm himself down.

“It was just a trick. Probably just to lead us all to one another. Natasha heard Clint, and I’m guessing Clint heard her?” Tony asked.

“Yeah. I knew… I guess there was a part of me that knew it wasn’t real, because I couldn’t hear Nat, but Clint could. But I- God, I’m just… glad you’re okay.” Steve said, closing his eyes and holding Tony as close as he could get him, letting his head rest against Tony’s cheek and for once, not even caring if he was overstepping boundaries or worrying that he might be making tony uncomfortable.

A few minutes ago, he’d thought Tony was being tortured to death. He was allowed this.

 

“Did you… did you throw a wrench at a demon, by the way?” Steve asked suddenly, and he heard a tiny little chuckle escape from Tony’s mouth, muffled by Steve’s shoulder.

“Yes. I thought that was a damn good shot, too. I was, what, ten meters out? And I got the fucker right on the back of the head.” Tony said, adjusting his head so that his chin was resting right in the crook of Steve’s neck.

It was only half a minute later when Natasha came back around the corner, this time with Clint following close behind her, that Steve and Tony finally let go of each other, giving one another a few last cursory glances to check they were both definitely okay before breaking apart and meeting up with the others.

 

“Okay, to start with, is anyone hurt?” Steve asked, looking around the people in front of him and checking for any sign of injury.

They all shook their heads, and then Natasha suddenly turned her gaze to a point behind Steve and lifted her gun, firing a shot off and walking forward. The Tony on the floor, who'd regained consciousness and had begun crawling back toward the gun he had dropped, toppled to the ground, the bullet lodging itself right between his eyes.

“God, this is so fucking weird,” Tony breathed, staring at his now-dead doppelgänger, before swiping the wrench up and spinning it in the air and then grabbing the gun and chucking it into the group of his friends.

“Okay, I think a sitrep is in order, don’t you?” Clint asked, grabbing for the gun Tony had thrown for him and pocketing it.

“First thing’s first, has anyone seen Bruce or Thor?” Tony asked, walking back toward them and inserting himself next to Steve, close enough that their shoulders were touching; Steve able to feel the bare skin of Tony’s shoulders thanks to the measly tank top Tony was wearing.

“No. They’re the only ones left unaccounted for. Our next step forward should be finding them, and then we work from there.” Natasha said, and everyone nodded their agreement.

“Weapons inventory?” Steve asked, and everyone shuffled around, unsheathing various weapons and objects that they’d secreted about their person.

There were three guns, two of them having been acquired from the things that appeared to be hunting them and one that had been brought down here with Clint, all with varying supplies of ammo in them. Steve had an axe and a shield; Tony had a toolkit, which had also apparently been there when he’d woken up, and Natasha had a long knife, which again, had been brought here with her.

“So, what, Loki decided to give us all a weapon? Why?” Steve asked, when the others admitted that they had all been given something when they’d woken up here.

“As much as I’m sure Tony loves inventing shit, I don’t really see how his wrench and screwdrivers are gonna help him when coming face to face with a blood-sucking monster, or whatever the fuck Loki decides to pit us against,” Clint said, picking the toolkit off the ground where all the other weapons were stacked and inspecting it curiously

“Hey, don’t diss the wrench. I managed to take out my evil twin with that wrench,” Tony said, snatching his stuff back out of Clint's hands and scowling.

“So, not weapons then. Maybe just something we find useful? An object we value? Clint, you got your gun, Natasha has her knife. I got my shield, and Tony, you got a toolkit.”

“Obviously he wasn’t feeling too generous, or he would’ve at least let me have a bow and arrow,” Clint muttered sourly.

“Well I’m guessing he doesn’t want to make it too easy for us. Hence why I don’t have the Suit right now,” Tony added.

“Listen, we’ve got what we’ve got, there’s no point complaining about it. I say we start walking as soon as possible- Bruce and Thor aren’t gonna find themselves. Tony, take one of the guns and your toolkit, Clint and Natasha, you take the other two. I’ll take the shield and axe.” Steve instructed, picking up his weapons and watching the others do the same, before they all ordered themselves into formation, with Steve taking point at the front and Natasha at the back, Clint and Tony flanking them.

 

“What are we gonna do about food and stuff?” Clint asked, breaking the silence after a minute or so.

“Of course, Barton’s back to thinking about food again,” Tony said, rolling his eyes and grinning when Clint gave him a shove.

“It’s a very serious question. Unless you want to starve to death in this pit of nightmares.”

“If worst comes to worst, we’ll just eat you.”

“Uncalled for, Tony. And anyway, you fancy taking me on? Ninja assassin guy, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I’ll throw my wrench at your face.”

“Well now you’ve just told me your master plan.”

“yeah, but you don’t know _when_ I’m gonna throw the wrench at your fac-

“Guys,” Steve interrupted, rolling his eyes and hiding a grin behind his hand, “ I’m pretty sure Loki wont want us to die of something as basic as starvation or dehydration. You heard what he told Tash before he sent us here- this is all just a game to him. It’s probably why he’s given us weapons. It wouldn’t be any fun for him if we just died straight away. He’s trying to make this as… oh, okay, this is new.” Steve said, trailing off suddenly as he rounded the corner.

It was an odd setup. There was a wide corridor with at least five doorways running along the left side, leading into a huge open room that was similar in size to some of SHIELD’s aircraft hangars.

Steve looked at the others, who all silently moved forward with him into the space, weapons raised. There was nothing in it, however. But at the far end, Steve’s eyes could pick up some sorts of doorways- a little like the ones they had just come through. Except these had barriers in front of them; odd slats of metal that covered the entrance.

Steve was reminded of the boxes they kept horses in, before they were made to race.

“Keep your guard up, guys.” Steve warned quietly, as they all moved forward, making their way through the hangar and toward the doorways at the end.

 

The hairs at the back of Steve’s neck were standing on end again, and his gut was telling him to turn around, to walk away. There was just something… _odd_ about the whole setup. He glanced toward Tony on his left, who seemed to be thinking the same thing, his eyebrows drawn close together in apprehension and his gun raised high, gripped tightly between both hands.

“Guys. Maybe we should turn back. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Steve said, turning around to face the others.

Everyone passed, and Natasha seemed to consider it for a second, before she shook her head.  
“What if that’s just Loki messing with our heads? Maybe we’ve reached the exit portal already, and he’s just trying to make us feel like this, so we don’t go near it? We’ve got no idea.”

“So what, we’re just gonna walk into a trap under the assumption that our instincts are being controlled by Loki? We can’t do that, Nat. The only thing we can trust in this place is ourselves- God, you could be evil for all I know. If something feels wrong, then we leave. We can’t afford to take unnecessary risks.” Tony argued back, and Steve nodded his agreement.

“Listen, this whole place is designed to make us afraid. It’s designed to put us on edge. We’re already most of the way there- I say we just get to the doors, and see what’s on the other side.” Clint piped up this time.

“We are four highly trained individuals, all with weapons and experience. We’ll be okay.” Natasha said.

“You have no idea what could be waiting for us, Natasha, you’re being naïve.” Steve snapped, feeling his patience begin to wear thin.

“And you're letting your fear get the better of you, Rogers.” She answered back sharply.

“Well Tash, the fear of potential of horrifyingly painful death is pretty valid, not gonna lie.” Tony said.

“Tony, Steve, if you’re so scared then me and Nat can go on our own. You stay and watch the doors.” Clint huffed, rolling his eyes and signaling for Natasha to follow him, which she did without hesitation.

Tony looked to Steve for a moment, before sighing and running a hand through his hair, a clear sign of his frustration.

“Maybe they’re right, Steve. Every experience we’ve had so far has been designed to mess with our heads. And either way, we can’t just leave them on their own if they’re gonna get themselves into shit.” Tony said, sighing and looking at his two friends, who were walking ahead with determined expressions on each of their faces.

Steve sighed, biting his lip and weighing is options. It didn’t take long, however- Tony was right. They couldn’t just abandon their teammates, and they did have a point. He’d been feeling on edge ever since he’d arrived here; this was probably just his imagination running away with him, the fear and tension making everything seem far more nefarious than they actually were.

“Yeah, you’re right. Lets go.” He said, taking lead and hearing Tony fall into step behind him, gun raised.

 

They were halfway to reaching Clint and Natasha when suddenly; five huge spotlights were flicked on, pouring blinding light into the huge space.

 

Instantly, everyone was on high alert, guns raised and eyes scanning everywhere, searching for a threat.

“Clint, Nat, get back. Now.” Steve ordered, and this time they didn’t argue, beginning to walk toward Tony and Steve, who were also stepping backwards toward the doors they had come through. From the other side of the room, Steve heard something begin to move. Scrabbling noises and hisses, nails scratching along the doors and sending shivers down his spine.

There was something on the other side of those barriers. And it wanted to get out.

“Guys. Look, on your 3 o’clock’” Tony hissed, pointing a hand to the screen that no one had noticed before, projecting an imagine on to it’s flat surface.

It was a long way away, and the screen wasn’t particularly large, so they all had to squint to see properly. The images seemed to be purposely pixelated, like in the old-fashioned arcade games Steve had seen before.

It was them. Steve only knew this because of the obvious uniform his cartoon was wearing, as with Tony and his suit. Their cartoon counterparts were running, along the screen, and behind them, there appeared to be hundreds of pixelated stickmen, hot on their heels.

They all watched the cartoon for a few more seconds in morbid curiosity, until suddenly their characters appeared to reach a wall or a dead end or whatever it was, and the stickmen descended on them, piling up atop one another until the cartoon-Avengers disappeared completely.

The screen suddenly went black, and two words flashed on the screen.

 **Game over.**  
**Game Over.**  
**Game Over.**

“What the _fuck?_ ” Clint exclaimed.

Across the room, the scratching got louder.

“Out. Move out, right now.” Steve commanded, reaching out for Tony’s arm and beginning to pull him back. He paused for a second, however, when the screen changed yet again.

The lone number 3 flashed once on the screen.

Then 2.

Then 1.

“GO!” Steve yelled, hauling him and Tony forward and hoping Clint and Nat had caught back up with them now, as he tried to keep his pace at a roughly human level in order to make sure he didn’t leave his friends behind.

 

As the number 1 flickered off, and the screen went blank once again, all the barriers on the far side of the room began to lift upward.

 

For a brief second, everyone was frozen in horror as they watched the hundreds, if not thousands of…faceless _things_ , spill out of the doorways, trampling all over one another in their desperation to reach the four people on the other end of the room.

They looked human…ish. If humans had talons and skin that was a sickly whiteish gray color and no face except for their mouths, which were lined with sharp, pointed teeth that made a clacking noise as their forked tongues scraped over them.

Okay, so maybe not quite human.

Steve snapped into action at the same time as the others did, hauling Tony backward and breaking out into a sprint for the third time, heading toward the nearest exit.

“ _WHAT THE FUCK?_!” Clint screamed again, barely audible over the now-deafening sounds of all the creatures that were giving chase.

“BEATS ME! JUST FUCKING RUN!” Tony screamed back, turning his head a little to look back at Clint and Natasha, who were still a few meters behind him and Steve.

They were almost back at the entrance now and they all put a little burst of speed into their sprint, desperately trying to keep the distance that was beginning to shorten between them and the monsters that were in pursuit. Steve reached the end of the room first, slowing down to a stop and waiting for the others to catch up with him. As he stopped and turned, he watched in horror as the swarm of monsters scampered forward, hundreds upon hundreds of bodies moving in one swirling mass of terror and grey flesh, teeth snapping and claws scratching against the floor.

“Steve, now would be a good time to _haul ass_ like the freedom of America depends on it. Let’s _go_ , supersoldier!” Tony yelled, slowing down a little to grab at Steve’s arm and pull him along, refusing to look at behind him and see the oncoming tidal wave of monsters.

They waited a few more seconds, until Natasha and Clint were almost directly behind them before setting off again, this time running together as one unit as they all charged back around the corners and through the doors they had come from.

Steve heard it as the creatures made it into the corridor, because suddenly all their screams were amplified as they echoed off the bare metal walls. He didn’t want to look behind him, for fear of what he would see.

“We need to find Bruce!” Tony screamed, eyes manic and wild in worry for his absent friend.

“Maybe he’s not even in this building, we all came in through different places, so it could be that-“

“No, no, no, you don’t get it! This… this is Bruce’s nightmare! His big fear! We need… to find him!” Tony said, trying to shout over the cacophony around him whilst running a full-out sprint.

Steve shouted for them all to take a left, keeping his eyes peeled for their missing friends. Both Bruce and Thor still hadn’t been accounted for, and Steve was starting to wonder if they ever would be.

No. He couldn’t think like that. There was still hope. He had to keep faith.

“They’re gaining on us!” Natasha yelled, turning her head from her vantage point at the back and then snapping it back immediately, putting in an extra burst of speed and nudging Clint along.

“WHAT THE FUCKING _FUCK?!_ ” Clint yelled, doing the same as Natasha and turning his head to look down the long corridor, where the creatures had just begun to turn the corner.

The sheer number of them was terrifying. They were crawling over one another, filling up the entire corridor with their bodies and drowning out any other noises there might have been with their deafening screeches.

“WE HAVE TO SHAKE THEM OFF!” Steve yelled, eyes searching for an escape route amongst the endless dead-ends and empty rooms.

Tony, who was running just behind Steve, assessed his surroundings with a quick glance; putting his eidetic memory to good use as he tracked out the path he remembered taking in order to find his way into this building in the first place.

“THIS WAY!” Tony shouted, grabbing Steve’s arm and guiding him through a door that lead to a stairwell, Clint and Natasha following close behind.

Steve didn’t have time to argue; he just hoped that wherever Tony was going wasn’t going to lead them all toward imminent death. Letting Tony take point, he dropped into second place, scrambling up the thin staircase with the two assassins hot on his heels.

He felt the creatures’ presence as they hurled themselves into the tiny staircase with them, and Steve realized that it seemed climbing a flight of stairs might not have been the best idea. Their arms were an awful lot longer than your average human, which meant that if they were going uphill they could simply revert back to all fours, which was definitely a faster alternative.

They were gaining on Steve and the others with every passing second.

“STARK, YOU BETTER HAVE A FUCKING PLAN!” Clint screamed, taking out his gun and firing a shot randomly down the stairwell, hoping it would scare the things enough to at least make them pause for a moment.

They didn’t even flinch. The unfortunate victim toppled to the ground, and the rest of them simply trampled over it.

“DON’T WORRY, I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING!” Tony shouted back, reaching the top of the stairs and then veering off into a sharp left, which led them to a wide corridor with two levels; one top floor and then the ground one, which they were currently running through.

Steve made the mistake of looking up to the second floor, which he could see thanks to the metal-grate floors- and he barely managed to contain a yell of horror.

“THEY’RE ON THE SECOND FLOOR TOO!” He screamed, wondering it the others could even hear him over the screeches and growls that filled the air.

But he saw Clint look upward out of the corner of his eye, and then watched as the man yelled out a string of truly obscene swear words that Steve might have brought him up on were they not running for their lives, with horrible faceless monsters pursuing them from all sides.

 

Suddenly, Steve heard a clatter of footsteps down the metal staircase that led from the second floor to the first and he hoisted his axe, ready to decapitate or dismember whatever came down to meet them. The others did the same, raising their guns and setting their jaws in determination, preparing to fight with whatever they saw.

 

But the shape that was jumping down the stairs looked very much more human than the things chasing them, with wrinkled clothes and curly brown hair and glasses that were skewed sideways on his nose, and everyone gave a yell of surprise as they realized that it was Bruce who threw himself into the corridor, not one of the monsters.

“BRUCEY!” Tony yelled, putting on an extra burst of speed in order to clash into the other scientist, throwing his arms around the man in a quick embrace before pulling him forward urgently.

Bruce was quite clearly in shock, that much was obvious. Steve wasn’t entirely sure if he had registered their presence at all, his eyes were glazed over and empty, and he simply looked at Tony with blank face before following on behind.

The things were barely ten meters behind Natasha now, and Steve could imagine how tired the others must be feeling at this point- he knew they couldn’t keep going for much longer.

Obviously, it wasn’t just Steve who was thinking this, because a few seconds later Natasha was shouting down the corridor.

“TONY, HOW MUCH FURTHER?” she yelled.

“JUST HOLD OUT FOR TWENTY MORE SECONDS!” Tony answered back, signaling left for them to all run through a door.

“THEY’LL HAVE CAUGHT UP TO US IN TWENTY SECONDS! WE NEED MORE TIME!” Natasha said, and Steve couldn’t help but agree with her as he pushed through the door and into the impossibly thin corridor that it led on to, barely big enough to fit his broad shoulders through.

How they were going to buy that time, however, they had no idea.

“LOOK, THERE’S THE DOOR! WE GET THROUGH THERE, AND WE’LL LOSE THEM.” Tony told everyone, pointing a hand forward to the very end of the corridor, where a single door stood, its grand, expensive oak paneling looking weirdly out of place amongst the abundance of metal that surrounded them all.

Steve sighed in relief, praying that they would make it there before the creatures did.  
Maybe, just maybe, God would be on their side for this one.

 

As Steve ran forward, Clint hot on his heels and swearing loudly, they all heard the unexpected sound of five shots going off in quick succession.

His head snapped back around, watching in horror as Natasha turned her back to the others in the middle of the corridor as she raised her gun and fired shot after shot at the never-ending cascade of monsters, jogging backward as she went.

“NATASHA, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU _DOING_ , MOVE!” Clint screamed, stopping in the corridor as well and making out to start running back to her, but Steve grabbed his arm and pulled him the other way, staring back helplessly at his friend as she briefly halted the monsters in their tracks.

“COME ON, NAT!” Everyone was screaming, as the gap between them and their teammate grew with each step they took away from her.

Natasha took one last shot, before turning back and beginning to sprint again, gesturing for the others to move with a twist of her wrist and a death-stare that would’ve sent any sane person scarpering. The monsters were scarily close to her now, their arms outstretched and grabbing at the material that flapped behind her back with their curved claws, hissing in delight.

They all ran, Steve desperately wanting to go back to grab Natasha and forcefully haul her forward- but the corridor was too thin for him to go backwards without holding up Clint, and he was having to keep a grip of the archer’s arm anyway in order to stop _him_ trying to go back and forcefully haul Natasha back, which wouldn’t be quite as successful due to his lack of supersoldier serum.

They were half way down the corridor. They could make this.

 

Or at least, Steve thought that until there was an ominous rumble that shook through the hallway, and then the ceiling began caving in.

Well, that was the first thought that crossed Steve’s mind. It wasn’t actually caving in, per se- but there was a part of the roof toward the end of the corridor that was lowering, slowly beginning to cover their escape with every passing second.

“Oh, you have got to be fucking _KIDDING ME_!” Tony cried, looking at the descending hatch and using the last remnants of his energy to put on an extra burst of speed, hauling Bruce, who still hadn’t said a single word to them, along with him.

It was a race against time now. Get to the door, before the trapdoor blocked their exit and left them to the monsters.

 

“NATASHA, COME ON!” Steve yelled, as Natasha pumped her arms and ran, trying to get some distance between her and her pursuers, legs a blur of activity as they moved back and forth.

The door was halfway down by the time Tony and Bruce reached it, both diving underneath the panel of metal and rolling to the other side with a clatter. Steve was next, dragging Clint’s struggling body forward and forcibly pushing him underneath, with a quick yell to Tony and Bruce to hold him down in case he tried to get back to the other side and go back for his partner.

It was just him and Natasha now.

 

Their eyes met across the hallway, Natasha still a good twenty-odd meters behind, and the monsters dangerously close to overtaking her.

 

She nodded once to him, her jaw set and her eyes determined- and that was when Steve knew what she had done.  
Staying behind to block their path, even if it had only been for a few seconds, had bought them the time that they had needed.

And she’d sacrificed herself for it.

 

“ _Tash_ ,” Steve choked, glancing down at the hatch, which was now down to his knees and slowly getting lower.

This didn’t even feel real. It couldn’t be Natasha- she was the strongest of all of them. She couldn’t- that woman was _invincible_ , for fucks sake.

 _‘Keep Clint safe,’_ Natasha mouthed, giving Steve a tiny smile that gave away so much more than she would usually ever let any one see.

And then she turned around, putting a bullet right between the eyes of the monster that had just grabbed her free hand, as Steve dropped to the ground and rolled through the gap.

 

 

He felt like he was dreaming.

 

The floor was cold underneath his skin, and there were hands grabbing him, shaking his shoulders and shouting words in his ears.

“Where’s Nat? _What the fuck happened to Nat?_!” Clint was screaming, scrabbling over Steve to try and get through the gap Steve had come through.

 

But it was too small now. A few seconds later, it closed completely, and everything went deadly silent again. No hisses or yowls or thuds on metal floors.

Just silence.

 

Steve was glad Natasha hadn’t screamed. He wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to deal with that.

 

He sat up slowly, groggily, watching Clint hammer at the wall separating them all; watching Bruce staring, horrified, at the scene around him, as if he were only just waking up to what was going on.

Tony had been crouched by Steve with a hand on his shoulder, but now he’d moved toward Clint, pulling him back with all the force he had left in order to stop the archer doing damage to his hands as he punched at the unyielding wall in front of him.

 

There was no sound for a while, apart from everyone’s heavy breathing and Clint’s choking sobs.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said softly, and Steve looked to him in confusion. He hadn’t said a word since they’d found him, and now he was finally talking, that was the first thing he said?

“Bruce, you didn’t have any control over your own fears. Don’t do that to yourself,” Tony said, shaking his head and wiping a hand over his face, brushing off the silent tears that had fallen down his cheeks.

There was quiet again.

It seemed after a while all the fight had drained out of Clint, and he slumped to the ground, his back resting against Tony’s legs as he stared emptily up at the wall.

 

“What now?” Steve asked quietly.

There was no reply for a few moments, everyone still too overcome with shock to answer.

They still hadn’t found Thor. They probably never would. And now…

 

Now Natasha was dead.

 

“We fight. We get out of here. And then we kill Loki for what he did.” Clint suddenly said, head jerking up and his eyes hardening in resolve, the toughened soldier making it’s way back to the surface as he stood up and brushed the stray tears away from his eyes.

They all looked at him for a moment, before nodding and beginning to stand.

“Can’t argue with that. This way,” Tony said, patting Clint on the shoulder gently, and then stopping to haul Bruce up to his feet before walking the last few steps to the huge door that they’d risked life and limb to get to and pushing it open.

Steve slowly got to his feet, sparing a last glance behind him and saluting their fallen friend, swallowing back the familiar hotness behind his eyes as he ducked around to the other side of the door.

Once this was all over, then there would be time or mourning. But for now, if they wanted to make it out of here, they would have to keep a hold over all their emotions. It wouldn’t do any of them any good to break at a time like this.  
They had to keep going. Just like Natasha would.

 

Clint, who was the last remaining person in the room now, spared one last look behind him, raising his hand until the pads of his fingers brushed against the cold metal, just for a few seconds, before letting them drop again.

 

“I’m gonna make him pay, Natasha. Just you watch.” He whispered into the empty room, letting a final tear slip down his cheek and feeling the grief and sadness overcome him, just for a moment, before he clamped it all down and set it to the back of his mind.

For his entire career, he had been taught exactly how to suppress feelings and emotions, in order to get the job done. But it had never been as hard to do as it was just now.

He straightened up and walked out of the room, stopping at the threshold of the door to throw one last look over his shoulder, a tiny smile on his face.

 

“You really were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And I meant it, when I told you I loved you. Even if you didn’t believe me.”

Then he turned away, and shut the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, my fingers slipped, and now Natasha's bit the dust. sorry pal ://


	5. Chapter 5

In the Avengers Tower, Natasha Romanov awoke with a scream.

She bolted upright, her eyes terrifyingly wide and her hand scrabbling for a gun that she knew wasn’t there, the usual calm demeanor she radiated completely gone, instead replaced with an uncharacteristic panic that clawed at her heart and buried itself in her bones.

She’d _died._

She could remember it; feel the overwhelming sense of terror as her bullets ran out, as the creatures swarmed around her, crushing her body under their intense weight as their claws ripped into her skin.

She’d _died._

Scrambling into an upright position, her eyes swept manically around the room, looking for something, anything to defend herself with. Against the next challenge.

“Natasha! Please, be still. You’re fine. Your consciousness has been returned to its rightful place- Loki has no power over you anymore. You are safe. You are protected.”

Then there were hands on her shoulders, sliding around her waist and embracing her in a soft hug that reminded her of lightning and safety and booming laughter and home.

Thor was there, surrounding her violently shaking body with his warmth. How and why, they were still a mystery. But Natasha was just glad there was something she could hold on to, to stop her completely falling apart.

“Please breathe deeply, Natasha. You are going through shock- for all purposes of the matter, you just died. It may take a while for you to feel normal again. Focus on breathing, then I will explain,” Thor told her in his gentlest voice, softly stroking the curls of her copper hair with a strong hand as she coughed up uncontrollable sobs on to his shoulder.

 

It had all been so _real_.

 

The fear. The acceptance. The sheer, intense pain. The nothingness.  
She could even remember her last thoughts, playing absently on her mind as darkness swept over her vision and she felt her rabbiting heartbeat begin to shut down.

_God, I hope the others make it out._

Jerking her head out of the crook in Thor’s neck, Natasha’s wide, unfocused eyes met with Thor’s distraught ones, the question already falling out of her lips before she even had a chance to finish the train of thought.

“The others. Are they- what about the others?” She stuttered, her tongue feeling like a heavy weight bearing down inside her mouth.

Thor looked at her silently for a few seconds, biting his lips and swallowing nervously under her sharp stare, before finally letting go of her and shifting his body a little so that she could see what was behind him.

She was sat on the couch in the living room, which was pretty much the only thing that remained intact around her. Armchairs and pillows littered the ground, among the shattered pieces of glass that had once been their coffee table. There were holes in every wall, and the glass windowpane that took up the whole half of the tower had been completely destroyed, letting in the cold evening breeze. There were also a fair few of Thor’s familiar electrical burn marks, and some other energy blasts that Natasha didn’t recognize.  
But a fraction of a second later, she registered that she and Thor were not the only people sat on the couch, and the entirety of her concentration fell to that matter instead.

All of them. Clint, Tony, Steve, Bruce- sprawled against one another, their eyes closed peacefully and completely, utterly unharmed.

Shoving Thor out of the way with an accurately placed hand, she threw herself forward and pressed the pads of her two fingers against an unconscious Steve’s neck, trying to feel for the thrum of his heartbeat.  
Which she did. Surprisingly.

It was fast-paced and adrenaline fuelled, as if he were in the middle of a battle, but it was there and it was real and-

Wait.

“Prove to me that you’re genuine.” Natasha demanded suddenly, turning to face Thor and inserting her body so that it was giving as much protection toward her unconscious friends as possible.

The black blood and black eyes of every demon she had encountered was burned into he mind.

Thor remained calm at her sudden change in mood, simply raising his hands and backing away slowly, making sure she didn’t feel threatened.

“Last week, I challenged Steven to a game of blind hide and seek. I fell off the roof. You watched me at your position by the kitchen sink as I fell past your window.” Thor said gently, a cheeky grin playing about his lips as he thought back to the memory.

Natasha stilled, checking his body for any micro-expressions that implied he was lying. It was only ten seconds of her staring that she finally gave in and moved away, letting herself slump back on the couch as exhaustion overtook.

“Explain. Now,” Natasha muttered, voice quiet and dangerous, her hands still shaking despite her best efforts to quell them.

This was the first time in...well, pretty much her whole life, that she had ever been this out of control with her own emotions. It was terrifying.

Thor took in his shaken friend- the wild heartbeat pulsing underneath ashen grey skin. Terrified, haunted eyes that flickered everywhere in apprehension and fear.

He had never seen the Black Widow like this before.

“I am not quite sure where to begin, Natasha. I myself am not too sure of all the facts just yet- but I have summoned my mother for further information, and she should be here soon to give us more answers.” Thor admitted, looking to the heavens anxiously.

“Then tell me what you do know. How did I end up back here, when I... died, back there?” Natasha whispered fiercely, dragging her way through the last part of the sentence as if she were trying to prove something by saying the words.

Thor paused for a second, shaking his head and rubbing a hand across his forehead.

“The things Loki has been meddling in... it is complex, very complex magic. Things I cannot hope to understand- things I’m not sure even he himself has a full comprehension of. But, essentially, when he appeared here this morning, he opened a portal that led into a world of his own creation, and then pulled you in. Now, here is where it gets complicated,” Thor said, frowning as he tried to put his thoughts down into words for Natasha to understand.

“The brain has baffled even the greatest of Asgardian minds for as long as we can remember. There is still no-one in the nine realms who can understand it truly. Essentially however, we believe each person to have a consciousness. A soul, if you will. Humans are still skeptical of this, but we on Asgard are more advanced, and we have a better, although still imperfect, understanding of it.”

Thor paused, checking Natasha’s face to see if she was still following, and at the confirming nod of her head he continued.

“Anyway- when Loki threw you into his world, he didn’t have the skills to do a full-bodied transfer. No one does, that art has yet to be perfected, although Loki’s efforts were quite outstanding. He simply succeeded in extracting your consciousness out of your bodies, and transferring it into this...place of his. So for all purposes of the matter, you were there. You lived it out, experienced every moment as it were real because to you, it was.”

“So how am I not dead? Surely my- my consciousness died in there. How come I feel normal now? Or have I lost my soul?” Natasha breathed, searching her mind for any difference in emotion, or lack thereof.

“No no, do not worry. You are just as you were before this all began. You see- as I was saying about the consciousness, it is incredibly complicated. You cannot simply ‘kill’ it; it has no form to kill. The science behind it is far too complex for us to be able to work our how to destroy one effectively, as of yet. And thankfully, because Loki could not move your bodies into his world too, they remained here in our universe, and acted as the anchors for your consciousness to follow. At the time, the magic of Loki’s world was blocking out the ‘signal’ your body and mind was sending out that would pull you back here- but then you died.”

Thor stopped to shiver involuntarily and Natasha copied the action, trying to force back the fresh horrors in her mind. No doubt they would be the cause of a few nightmares for the next few lifetimes.

“You were forced out of his universe, and had your body not been here to guide you home, you would’ve been drifting through the gap between realities for eternity. Luckily, all that happened was your consciousness snapped back to its home like a rubber band, and you awoke back in your body with no physical harm done.”

“Then what was the point? Why did Loki do all of this if we were just going to wake up fine at the end of it? Did he not know?” Natasha pressed, hundreds of questions flitting in out of her mind, arranging themselves in most to least importance.

Thor froze, averting his eyes as he took in a heaving breath, grief suddenly overcoming him for a moment, before he pushed it all back down and returned to look at his friend.

“I think he did not factor my knowledge of spell-casting into his equation. I slipped out of his binding-spell before he could suck me in, and then did battle with him in the tower. He admitted to me then that his plan had been to let you wake up here, disorientated and afraid and perhaps just a little bit hopeful, before killing you once more.” Thor said, his voice loud and strong until the very end, when it finally wavered and cracked, grief and pain overcoming him.

 

_“Brother, please, I’m begging you to stop. You did not mean to kill them, you know that toying with their souls in your world of nightmares would have done them no lasting damage. There is still good in you- find it.” Thor begged, as he held Loki against the wall by his throat._

_“good? Good? You continue to underestimate me, Thor. There is no ‘good’ in a man who drags five unwilling souls into their own personal hell, and leaves them there with no other escape route but death. And there is certainly no good in a man who would then have watched them awaken back in the real world, shivering and shaking and pathetic messes, only to kill them all over again, ”Loki positively screamed, madness and insanity flashing like wildfire in his eyes as he grinned up at his horrified brother._

_Thor froze mid-choke, gagging in disgust and pain as he looked at what was left of the cheerful little boy who had played catch with him in the Royal Gardens or bandaged up his grazes from getting too close to the Bilschnipe._

_This was simply an echo. All that remained was madness and anger._

_“You may have stopped that particular plan from working out, but believe me Thor, it is far from over. The strongest Avenger, the one who can survive longest in that hell-pit... they are destined for the most unfortunate fate. It is unavoidable,” Loki explained, before ramming his elbow into the side of Thor’s face and continuing the battle._

Natasha let him have a minute to collect himself, a hand resting gently on his shoulder as he sucked in deep breaths and let a tear fall into the carpet.

“How did you defeat you brother in the end, then?” Natasha asked.

Thor’s head snapped up and something hardened in his eyes, losing a certain softness that Natasha knew would never be returned to him again.

“He is no brother of mine.” He snarled, hands fisting at the cushions until the seams ripped.

Natasha’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise. In all the time she had known him, not once had Thor ever given up on the hope that his brother’s sanity was salvageable, even when everyone else had.  
“I called Heimdall during our battle. He transported us up to Asgard and together we overpowered him. He was not happy at the turn of events, but no amount of threatening would make him release you. All I could do was return back here and wait for you to wake of your own accord. My mother is on her way to see if the process can be sped along- but I fear she won’t do much good. Loki’s work was thorough.”  
Natasha’s eyes flitted back to the sleeping forms of all her teammates, and she felt her breath hitch at the realization.

“So until they die...”

“They are trapped in that world, yes.” Thor finished, nodding his head sadly.

____________________********************____________________

“Where are we, Tony?” Steve asked, breaking the mournful silence after a few seconds, trying to keep his mind focused on something, _anything_ , other than what had just happened.

The team had ended up in what could only be described as a large closet; the door they’d walked through was hidden by vast amounts of clothes in a way that reminded Steve vaguely of the wardrobe from C.S Lewis’s ‘ _The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe’._

“The mansion. Grew up here. This is actually, um, my wardrobe. I made a little secret room, thing, when I was a kid. When I woke up here, I figured it might be a good place to start looking, and sure enough, I found the passage we came out of. Just… avoid the residents, you’ll be fine,” Tony answered dully, eyes flickering apprehensively around the room and grabbing at his right hand with his left, clutching tightly and defensively.

Just watching how Tony acted around his childhood home, the place he had grown up in, the place he had spent with people who had been family- and how uncomfortable he looked because of all that- it made Steve’s heart clench painfully. The fact alone that Tony had obviously designed a hidden room of his own at a very young age spoke volumes in his book.

A sharp little memory sprung to his mind; a mindless little jab he’d thrown Tony’s way a few months ago.

_Jheeze, Tony, maybe you could take a little wisdom from your father. At least he worked hard at what he did._

At the time, Steve had thought nothing of it. Tony had failed to show up for a meeting, and he had been angry. He had wanted to make sure Tony knew that.

But even then, he’d seen the way Tony’s whole body had tensed up, as if preparing for a fight. His face had turned from obnoxiously blasé to completely blank in the space of a few seconds, and he had opened his mouth, brows drawing together suddenly in a sudden burst of outrage, before it appeared to all instantly drain out of him, and he simply shrugged and turned away.

Steve had seen all that happen. He should have known, really. Should’ve looked between the lines- the way every time Howard’s name was mentioned, Tony drew his right hand into his left protectively, as if defending it from something that wasn’t there.  
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t read between the lines, hadn’t caught on to a damn thing until it was all too late to fix.

Just another thing to add to the list of wrongs he’d done Tony.

Walking forward slowly, he gently extracted Tony’s hand out of the man’s tight grip, and laced their fingers together supportively. Fuck Howard, and fuck whatever he’d done to Tony to scar him so permanently. Tony was, and always would be, a better man than Howard could ever be capable of being.

Tony startled for a moment, staring down at their entwined hands with a sharp intake of breath, before he looked up and gave something that was vaguely similar to a smile.

It was good enough for Steve.

“So…what’s the plan?” Bruce asked, piping up for the first time since they’d found him.

“Before we discuss plans, Bruce, I was wondering if you knew why you didn’t end up all…big and green, back there. Could’ve done with the help,” Clint said suddenly, his voice devoid of any emotion, robotic tones like a voice machine as he stared blankly at Bruce.

“I don’t… I think Loki has found a way to shut him out. The Other Guy, I mean. I tried, Clint, honestly. But there was nothing. I couldn’t feel him.” Bruce explained, eyes full of regret and sorrow as he watched Clint slowly come to terms with the fact, before nodding and turning back away.

“Okay. I understand. Anyway, what _is_ the plan?

Tony’s gaze snapped toward Clint, sighing softly and shrugging again, pointing out toward the large double doors on the other side of the room.

“I guess we could have a look around the rest of the place- see if there are any more passages. We should probably try the main entrance, that’s got to lead somewhere. But I mean what I said about avoiding the people here. I tried- I saw Jarvis, when I first woke up. He wasn’t…they’re not good. And they’re strong, too. I couldn’t even knock him out. Just kept getting back up, and I couldn’t just kill-“

Tony’s voice trailed off, shaking too hard to continue toward the end, and Steve gave his hand a soft squeeze of reassurance which was returned almost immediately, both of them gripping one another tightly.

“It’s okay Tony. We understand. No stopping to chat with your folks. Find the next passage along, and get the fuck outta here.” Clint said, drawing himself up straight and pulling both a gun and the knife Natasha had come here with and raising them, taking point and waiting for the others to join.

Steve knew the man was collapsing in on himself inside- him and Natasha, they were as close as you got. Years and years of training together, laughing together, spilling blood for one another. Clint had loved her more than he’d loved anything, and even though his mask of indifference held well, Steve could see the torture behind his eyes.  
But Clint needed this. He needed the mission, the distraction from everything, just as much as Steve himself did. And no doubt Clint was only still going because he fully intended to avenge Natasha by putting a bullet between Loki’s eyes.

Steve didn’t even care. Thor might have something to say, but honestly? It was about time Loki got taken down. He had caused everyone too much pain, and if they ever got out of this place alive, the trauma that he had put them through was enough to make Steve wish him to the deepest depths of hell.

“It’s probably better if I take point. I know the way, and all that,” Tony said, and Clint looked hesitant for a moment before falling back and letting position of lead fall to Tony, who raised his gun level and then opened the door slowly.

The room they were in now was quite obviously not an adult’s, Steve could tell that much from the décor. But it wasn’t what he would call a child’s bedroom, either. Where there should have been toys, there were design plans and blueprints. No posters on the wall, apart from a single Captain America one that hung at the head of the bed.

In fact, the only toys that Tony had were Cap ones.  
Huh.

“Well this is embarrassing. Okay, cards on the table, I was totally obsessed with you as a kid. As you could see, Howard wasn’t exactly generous on the toy and decoration front, the only stuff he ever let me play with was Captain America stuff. This is nothing compared to Howard’s collection though, you should see it, it’s like- twice the size of this room,” Tony rambled, a tiny blush crawling up his cheeks as he quickly kicked a stray Cap teddy bear into he corner of the room and pulled Steve forward toward the exit, their hands still gripping tightly on to one another.

Probably not the best tactical move, but Steve didn’t really care about that, either.

“Are these… Tony, is this a design for an… _AI?_ How old were you when you made this?” Bruce asked incredulously, bending down to pick up a sheet filled with barely readable scrawls that weren’t too unfamiliar to Tony’s own style of writing.

Tony glanced over at it, and then dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

“It was shit, not even applicable in any sense of the word. Just ignore them, there’s loads of worthless crap ‘round here”

Steve glared sharply at the back of Tony’s head, every word clawing a little deeper at his heart in pain. _What the fuck_ made Tony think stuff like that? _Who the hell_ had drilled into his head that this, these brilliant designs that Steve, a grown-ass enhanced individual couldn’t come up with, were worthless?

Of course, Steve knew the answer.

“Tony, these aren’t shit, what the hell ar-“

“Listen, Steve, can we get a move on? I don’t think we should be wasting time discussing the value of nine-year-old me’s inventions. Priorities are still a thing in this hellhole,” Tony interrupted, cutting him off with a wave of his arm and letting go of Steve’s hand in order to move forward and out into the corridor, leaving his old room and old memories behind.

With a heavy sigh and an unfamiliar coldness in his hand, Steve followed, Clint and Bruce coming in close behind him. He wished that he could get through to tony without all those walls coming up as soon as he tried, but he knew that was a pretty much an unattainable dream. Tony’s emotional barriers had barriers. And lasers.

They walked on in silence, all of them on high alert in case of another surprise attack, but the corridors they walked down remained silent. Empty. Foreboding.

“Jesus, Tony, _how big is your house?_ ” Clint asked, after a few minutes of walking down one single corridor.

Tony grimaced, shaking his head and peering around a corner to check for signs of movement.

“It’s not as big is this place is making it out to be. The corridors are being stretched out; I’ve passed the same painting at least three times now. I… I can see Howard’s office, though. We’ve passed it twice, and we’re coming up to the third opportunity now.” Tony paused, and Clint waited patiently for Tony to have the private little battle in his head, until finally nodding and signaling for them to follow him once more.

“There’s another secret passage in his office too- shut up, Clint, we were a paranoid bunch of fucks, okay? But it might be the quickest way out of here. I… we should try that and see,” Tony said, each word seemingly making him braver, until he was nodding his head pretty vigorously and stalking toward the two doors a few meters away and stowing his gun in order to get at the lock.

 

Inwardly, Tony was warring with himself. Every instinct, every memory that he’d ever had of this stupid place was telling him not to do this. Every tiny little scar he’d received from the hand of a smashed glass of whiskey against his ear in retribution for disobeying the orders of his father to ever enter this room suddenly burst fiercely into life, reminding him painfully what happened to boys who didn’t listen to their fathers.

It didn’t matter that he’d just been excited to show Howard that damn AI design. It didn’t matter that he had been nine fucking years old.  
All that had mattered was that Howard had been drunk and happened to be missing his belt that night. Everyone always said he’d been good at thinking on the spot- no belt to beat your kid with, why not just use shards of glass instead?

 _Christ, can you stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself for one fucking minute_ \- Tony chastised himself bitterly, bending down to type in the lock on the door and ignoring the terrified child inside of him that was begging him to leave it alone, to run back to his room where he belonged.

“Here we go, “ Tony said instead, opening the door with a flourish and plastering on a confidence to his features he truly did not feel.

It was going to be fine. He wasn’t a vulnerable kid anymore. Hell, if he wanted to, he could go find Howard walking around here somewhere and shoot the fucker dead right now. He was Iron Man, for fuck’s sake, he wasn’t afraid of his own damn-

“Anthony? You better not be in my office again, you little shit!”

Tony froze. Completely froze.

Steve turned to face the door, signaling for Clint to stand over the threshold and keep guard there, and then moved to press his hands to Tony’s shoulders until his was face-to-face with his friend.

“Tony, listen to me. We won’t let him hurt you. But you need to move; you have to get us out of here. He’s just one guy, and there are four of us.” He spoke reassuringly, fingers rubbing soft circles along Tony’s shoulders in what he hoped was a calming motion, but apparently seeming to do nothing to change Tony’s apparent catatonia. He was still frozen, not even breathing, just staring with his eyes ridiculously wide, looking into nothingness.

The footsteps started thudding down the corridor, and Steve watched out of the corner of his eyes as Clint stepped out, gun held high as he yelled through to the person storming down to meet them.

“Buddy, I wouldn’t recommend taking another step. I have a loaded gun and absolutely no fucks to give, really not a good combination.”

Steve couldn’t see what was going on through the hall, but he suddenly heard the loud sound of a gun going off, and the dull thud as the bullet hit its mark. Tony jerked wildly at the explosion, but that was all he did before stilling again.

Then Steve heard the yell of surprise from Clint, the dull thump of a foot taking another step, and if possible Tony’s eyes widened even further, his head turning just a fraction to look toward the door in horror.

And then suddenly Steve was being pushed backward, Bruce stepping into the space Tony had been occupying and gripping Tony’s shoulders tightly.

“This is a common reaction to extreme shock and PTSD for him. Petrification- I’ve seen him do this a few times before.” Bruce explained, eyes taking one last fleeting glance to the doorway before he turned back to Tony, a hand coming up to rest against the man’s cheek.

“Sorry, buddy, but we need you,” Bruce apologized quietly, before giving Tony a sharp slap in the face.

Steve yelled in surprise, jerking forward to push Bruce away, but it was only then that he saw Tony blink in surprise, his brain switching back online as he looked around the room.

“Tony. Escape passage. Now,” Bruce said evenly, and Tony looked at him, then at the door which Clint was rapidly retreating from, before nodding curtly and scrambling over to the large desk at the center of the room, hands running along the underside of the table in search for the secret switch.

“Guys, bullets aren’t working. He’s refusing to die,” Clint said helplessly.

Tony chuckled emptily as he moved around to the front, fiddling with something that Steve couldn’t see and turning away from them.

“Sounds like my old man, alright,”

Steve turned to the door, reaching out to slam it shut before Howard could meet up with them, only to find himself clutching at air as the door apparently disappeared into thin air.

“What the _fuck._ That’s not possible. It was _literally_ here, two seconds ago,” Steve said incredulously, staring dumbly at the door.

“Definitely possible. This world is Loki’s creation. He can do whatever he wants here. He’s probably watching us right now.” Bruce said bluntly.

Steve opened his mouth, and then shut it again angrily. The thought of them being nothing more than Loki’s plaything made his blood boil.

He stood solidly at the door, watching as the echo of Howard Stark walked up the corridor and stopped right in front of him, such a look of rage and hatred on his face that it actually made Steve feel a little afraid. There was a tumbler of some sort of alcohol in his hand, and the other fist was clenched tightly by his side.

Tony briefly looked up from his search, his eyes glazing over with a look that almost perfectly matched Howard’s own face, before he darted back around the desk and completely overturned it, the tabletop clattering over with a loud crash.

 _“What the fuck_ are you doing in my office? I told you _never_ to come in my office, boy! You useless little shit, I’ll teach you a damn lesson about respecting your elders!” Howard screamed, stepping forward, only to be met by the block of 7foot muscle that was Steve Rogers.

 

The older man gave Steve one punch to the chest, and sent him flying across the room.

 

He didn’t even seem to properly register anyone else except Tony, who had just found the thin indent hidden just under the corner of the desk and was pressing into it with shaking fingers. To their left, a panel of the wall suddenly made a hissing sound, and then became displaced from the rest of the wall, jutting out in a way that made it easy to open.

“Clint, Bruce, don’t try and stop him, he’s not human. He won’t die, just go!” Tony yelled as he saw Clint eye Howard clinically, deciding which was the best place to attack.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you, piece of shit!” Howard snarled, storming forward further into the room just as everyone began stumbling into the passage- Clint and Bruce first, Tony making his way to help Steve up from the floor where he was sprawled, looking rather dazed.

“You come here, fucker! Hold out your hand, it’s about time someone beat some sense into you!”

“Jheeze, do you ever shut up,” Tony mumbled, as he sprinted toward the passage with Steve at his side.

There was no way Howard was going to catch them. Magical or not, they were pretty much at the door now, and he was on the other side of the room. Tony was okay. He needed to stop panicking. Howard wasn’t going to hurt him.

But a flying tumbler of alcohol could.

Tony barely had time to register it hurtling through the air before he was bracing himself for impact, knowing the all-too-familiar agony that came with shards of glass colliding with skin.  
But even as his arms flew to his face in the hope to save himself from glass in the eye- the collision never came.

The door shut with a bang, and they left the office behind, Howard’s angry yells becoming complete silence as the ominous quiet converged upon them all once again, only the sound of the team’s labored breathing making any noise in the narrow alley.

Tony slowly opened his eyes and lowered his arms, wondering how the hell Steve had managed to shut the door in the space of time he’d had before the glass would have hit him full in the face.

Turns out he hadn’t had the time. Instead, the glass was crushed to pieces in his hand, still hovering an inch from the back of Tony’s head where it had been about to smash into.

Steve’s blood dripped from his hand to the floor in a rhythmic tapping sound.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked, turning to face Tony and dropping the shards of glass without a second glance, free hand coming up to brush against Tony’s jaw, his eyes scanning frantically all over, checking for injury.

“Yeah, not a scratch. But Steve- _your hand_ ,”

“It’s nothing, I’ll be fine-“

“Let me be the judge of that, please.” Bruce interrupted them both, stepping forward and gently reaching for Steve’s hand, the Doctor’s fingers gently inspecting each deep cut with a furrow in his brow.

His hands remained steady, but Bruce was feeling an underlying sense of dread every second he spent here. Mostly because he knew that now, whatever Loki had done to the Other Guy in order to sedate him meant that he was the most vulnerable person on the team. He didn’t have superstrength or assassin skills- he didn’t have Tony’s knowledge of fighting or ability to invent things on the spot.

He hadn’t realized quite how much he had relied on his alter ego to get him out of sticky situations until now.

“We need to bandage this up. You should be okay, the serum has already begun its repairs on the outer edges of your skin, but the deeper cuts will still be there for a while. You need to stop the blood flow and potential for infection.” He declared after a few seconds of inspection, stepping back and trying to think of something they could use as a suitable bandage.

Apart from their weapons, they had been brought no food supplies, or first aid, or anything.

“We’re gonna have to get all the little shards of glass out first,” Clint added, stepping forward and pulling Steve’s hand up briskly to the light that shone out of a single bulb above them, turning it a little in order to see the sparkles of glass that glistened with reflected light.

“Listen, we must have been here for at least a day by now. What about we rest here for the night, get some sleep. We can keep a watch going- everyone can take a three hour shift or something.” Steve said, looking down the black corridor ahead of them that lead to nothingness and biting his lip anxiously.

He hated everything about this. It was making every instinct and sense itch uncomfortably- but they had no choice. He could see everyone was emotionally and physically exhausted, not to mention running low on food and water.

Clint looked annoyed- probably due to his overwhelming desire to find Loki and kill him as soon as he could- but he agreed in the end, sitting down with a huff and declaring he would take second shift. Bruce too, fell asleep, only after Tony’s insistence that he would deal with Steve’s injury accordingly.

Soon, it was just Steve and Tony left awake, the others snoring quietly as Tony did his best to pull out the small pieces of glass from Steve’s hand with only his fingernails.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said quietly, stopping his meticulous inspection in order to look at Steve.

“What? What the hell are you sorry for, Tony?”

“That glass was intended for me. I didn’t want y-“

“Are you _serious?_ Really? You think I would rather the damn thing hit the back of your _head_ and probably kill you, than hit my hand? Seriously??”

“It’s not the worst he’s done. I’m pretty sure real-life Howard was just as much of a twisted fuck as that guy was, and I’m sorry if he was your old war pal or whatever, but I fucking hate him, okay, and I know he was this great guy to you, but not to m-“

“Tony, Tony. Shhh, hey, it’s okay,” Steve whispered, bringing his good hand up to stroke lightly at the back of Tony’s hair as the man shook underneath him, clearly still upset about the whole ordeal.

“I fucking hate Howard, Tony. I hate him for what he- what he did to you. I don’t care who he was before, when I knew him. He’s an abusive piece of shit, and you’re so much more than him. Please don’t ever assume I think highly of him ever again. I mean, you just said that him throwing that glass at you wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever done to you, what kind of sick fuck does that to a child-“ Steve hissed in disbelief, then in pain as he tried to clench his fist and realized with a burst of intense pain that it was a bad idea.

Instantly, Tony’s fingers curled around Steve’s hand, feather-light touches gently soothing the sharp spikes of pain that were coursing through his hand. He listened intently as Tony made tiny soothing noises at the back of his throat, watching each movement of the man’s lips as he quietly whispered words of comfort, wishing with everything that he had that he could just kiss away every stupid thought that was probably going through his head right now.

“I’m not sorry. Not at all. I’d take something a thousand times worse than this if it meant you were safe at the end of the day. I mean that, Tony.” Steve said, looking up at Tony without breaking eye contact, making sure that Tony knew, unconditionally, that he was telling the truth.

He’d tell him again and again for the rest of his life if he had to. If that’s what it took to make Tony believe him, then that’s what he would do.

Tony paused, eyes meeting Steve’s and holding for a few seconds, before he swallowed audibly and looked down, frowning a little at the now mostly-clean cuts on Steve’s hand.

“You need a bandage. Or at least something to staunch the blood flow,” Tony said quietly, shifting on his knees so that he was sat directly between Steve’s legs and then pulling off his loose tank top without hesitation, yanking it off his body in one swift movement.

Steve’s eyes went wide in surprise, and he opened his mouth to say something that would undoubtedly embarrass him- but then Tony just raised an eyebrow and laughed, pointing to Steve’s messy hand and then raising the shirt.

“Don’t get any ideas, Steve, this is just your makeshift bandage,” he said, chuckling lightly at the look on Steve’s face as he bent his head down to carefully wrap the material around Steve’s hand, each one of his touches sending electric shocks up his arm and shivers down his body. He did a quite frankly marvelous job of hiding all this from Tony- he was about three seconds away from passing out at the strain of having Tony this tantalizingly close, face literally centimeters away from his own as he delicately secured the shirt in place around Steve’s hand with nimble fingers.

“There. All done.” He said finally, bringing Steve’s newly bandaged hand up to his mouth and pressing the lightest kiss against the material before letting it drop again with a soft smile on his face.

Steve smiled back, glad that there was at least some form of light in this God Forsaken place. Today had been full of horrors- and they had lost a good friend. Steve felt Natasha’s death like a horrible crushing grip on his heart- God only knew how Clint was feeling. And Tony, he supposed. For Christ’s sake, only this morning they’d all been sat at breakfast together while tony and Nat had joked and fooled around, careless smiles on their faces as they teased one another.

And now Natasha was dead and hope seemed to be disappearing by the second. They were all barely managing to hold on to their composure- no doubt once this was over, the waves of grief would finally hit them. But despite what Tony might say, they were, at the end of the day, all soldiers. They would all keep going until the war was done, until the mission was complete. Then they would be allowed to crumble.

“Get some rest, Tony. I’ll keep first watch.” Steve said wearily, tugging on Tony’s bare arm and pulling him against the wall Steve was leaning on, until they were sat shoulder to shoulder.

With a sigh. Tony slumped immediately on to Steve’s shoulder, exhaustion overtaking him as he let his head drop. Steve wound an arm over Tony’s back and pulled him in closer, desperate for the contact, just to know that at least one of the people he loved were still alive.

And that wasn’t going to change. He was going to keep Tony alive with everything he had.

“We’re gonna be okay, Steve.” Tony mumbled into Steve’s neck, sending yet another wave of shivers running down his spine as he felt the warm breath tickle his skin, the soft scratch of Tony’s beard as it rubbed against his shoulder.

“Yeah. You are,” Steve answered, finding Tony’s hand in the darkness and squeezing gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a long time to update whoops i put it off for week and then write all this in a night why am I like this


End file.
